Heavy rains killed more than 30 people and forced the authorities to evacuate tens of thousands, since the strips of northern China were whipped by torrential downpours that caused landslides and floods, state media said on Tuesday.
Meteorological authorities have issued their second highest storm warning for the capital Beijing, Hebei and Tianjin neighbors, as well as 10 other provinces, said State news agency Xinhua. The rains are expected to last until Wednesday, he added.
At midnight on Monday, strong rainy storms had left 30 people dead in Beijing, Xinhua said, citing the city’s municipal flood control headquarters.
More than 80,000 people have been evacuated only in the Chinese capital, Daily Beijing He said on social networks.
The death toll was higher in Miyun, a suburban district northeast from the city center, he said.
“This time the rain was unusually heavy, it is usually not so,” said a resident of Miyun, surname Jiang, he said AFP While the water ran along the way out of his home. “The road is full of water, so people are not going to work,” he said.
In a town called Xinanzhuang visited by AFP Journalists, submerged houses of murky water, cars and a road that leads to a road.
A local man of about sixty said he had never seen so high water levels.
Record floods
Near the landfills sprouted with water torrents that leave the Miyun reservoir, that the authorities, according to the authorities, have reached their highest levels since its construction in 1959.
The Huairou district in the north of the city and Fangshan in the southwest was also severely affected, state media said.
Dozens of roads have been closed and more than 130 villages have lost electricity, Daily Beijing saying.
“Please pay attention to weather forecasts and warnings and do not go to risk areas unless it is necessary,” the exit said.
More than 10,000 people also evacuated their houses in the neighboring port city of Tianjin, which saw great sudden floods, according to the state -owned nationalist tabloid Global times
And in Hebei, which surrounds the capital, a landslide in a village near the city of Chengde killed eight people, with four from the state station CCTV He reported Tuesday.
In social networks, users shared accounts anxious to not being able to reach family members who lived in the mountainous Xinglong county in Chengde.
Earth landslides and floods forced more than 8,000 people to evacuate, while rescuers still tried to reach some villages that had “lost contact”, China National Radio He said Tuesday.
Local authorities have issued sudden flood warnings until Tuesday night, with Chengde and surrounding areas under the highest alert, said Hebei’s radio and television station.
‘Total efforts’
The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, urged the authorities on Monday night to plan the worst scenarios and hurry the relocation of residents of flood areas.
Daily Beijing Said local officials had “made efforts to search and rescue missing people … and did everything possible to reduce casualties.”
The Government has assigned 350 million yuan ($ 49 million) for disaster relief in nine regions affected by heavy rains, state station CCTV He said Tuesday.
200 million yuan have been reserved for the capital, said the station.
In 2023, heavy rains killed more than 80 people in the north and northeast of China, including at least 29 people in Hebei, where serious floods destroyed homes and crops.
Some reports at that time suggested that the province assumed the burden of a government decision to divert Beijing’s flood.
Natural disasters are common in China, particularly in the summer, when some regions experience heavy rains, while others bake in the abrasing heat.
China is the largest emitter in the world of greenhouse gases that scientists say they drive climate change and contribute to making extreme climate more frequent and intense.
But it is also a global renewable energy power that aims to make its mass economy neutral in carbon by 2060.
