Heavy rains battered northern China yesterday, killing at least two people in Beijing while washing away vehicles and forcing the capital to issue its highest alerts for flooding and landslides.
Doksuri, a former super typhoon, has swept northward over China since Friday last week, when it hit southern Fujian Province.
Emergency personnel recovered two bodies from waterways in Beijing’s Mentougou District, the People’s Daily reported.
Photo: video obtined by Reuters
Reporters saw tree branches and dented vehicles left by receding floodwater strewn on riverbanks in Mentougou yesterday afternoon.
“This morning it was crazy, the water overflowed the Mentougou River and the whole avenue was flooded,” said Guo Zhenyu, a 49-year-old resident.
Yellow bulldozers, workers in orange raincoats and residents cleared away the mud and debris during a period of lighter rain in the afternoon.
“I’m old, but I’ve never seen flooding like this before in my life,” Mentougou resident Qin Quan said.
She showed a video on her smartphone, shared among residents of the area, of workers attempting to resuscitate an unconscious man, as well as footage of a man desperately clinging to a pole with one hand as water washed over him.
The much larger and still swollen Yongding River in the same district churned up debris in brown torrents as residents looked on in shock from a bridge.
Other footage shared by a Mentougou resident showed a traffic barrier dozens of meters long snaking down a road as the water carried it away.
Chen Hong, a resident of the southern Fengtai District, shared footage that showed a parked van half-submerged in fast-flowing brown water on Monday morning as the rain continued to fall.
Residents in Chen’s neighborhood cleared mud outside their homes with shovels during a brief respite from the downpour.
“Once it starts raining the road turns into a drain, and there’s water on the first floor inside houses,” Chen, 52, said.
“The houses here are all old houses, so there are definitely concerns about safety,” she said.
A section of road surface in outer Fangshan District caved in under rising water, local media reported.
Hundreds of bus services in the capital were suspended, Xinhua news agency reported.
The Beijing government issued the highest flood warning for the suburban Dashihe River, while nearby city Tianjin also issued a flood alert.
Social media users uploaded footage of vehicles swept away by muddy torrents and thoroughfares turned into rapids on the outskirts of the city.
The streets of central Beijing were quieter than usual yesterday morning as residents heeded official recommendations to work from home, with only a handful of delivery drivers braving pools of water seen in usually packed bike lanes.
China has been experiencing extreme weather and posting record temperatures this summer, events that scientists say are being exacerbated by climate change.
Experts have warned that the ongoing downpour could prompt even worse flooding than in July 2012, when 79 people were killed and tens of thousands evacuated, local media reported.
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