Zhuozhou. The rains that hit Beijing in recent days, with deadly floods, were the most intense in 140 years since the beginning of rainfall records, reported the meteorological service of the Chinese capital, where rescue operations accelerated on Wednesday.
Millions of people around the world have been affected in recent weeks by extreme weather events and heat waves, which scientists say are exacerbated by climate change.
Torrential rains, which eased markedly on Wednesday, began to fall on the greater Beijing region on Saturday. In just 40 hours, the city saw the equivalent of all the rainfall for an average July fall.
“The maximum value of precipitation recorded” by a station in the city during this storm “was 744.8 millimeters” and it is “the most intense in 140 years,” said the Beijing meteorological service.
The previous record had been 609 millimeters in 1891, said this body.
Storm Doksuriwhich had once been classified as a super typhoon, swept across China from south to north after wreaking havoc in the Philippines last week.
On Tuesday, state television CCTV said the storm had killed at least 11 people in Beijing, with 13 missing.
This Wednesday, the rains reached the city of Zhuozhou, in the province of Hebei, which surrounds the Beijing area.
The aerial images captured by AFP show the streets of Zhuozhou turned into rivers of brown water and the agricultural areas totally flooded.
A printing press worker who gave his name only as Liu said they initially tried to block the flow of water, but it was impossible.
“We couldn’t get any equipment or material to protect them. We were trapped inside until noon when we were rescued,” he said.
In Hebei nine people died and six are missing due to the rains.
The floods cut off water and electricity supplies in several places in Zhuozhou, according to Chinese media.
Cleanup and rescue
State media had warned the previous week that 130 million inhabitants would be affected by these extreme rainfalls in the north of the country.
According to a count by the Chinese media, some 127,000 people have already been evacuated in Beijing (population 22 million) and 847,400 in Hebei (population 74 million).
After the bulk of the rainfall, attention shifted to the rescue operation for which hundreds of Red Cross rescuers were sent to the most affected areas to clean up the damage and help the victims, reported Xinhua.
President Xi Jinping called on Tuesday to “make all possible efforts” to prevent further deaths and rescue “missing or trapped” people.
Visiting the Mentougou district, one of the hardest hit in the capital, Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing said that “the top priority of the current work was to save lives, to fight against time to find the missing or trapped.”
China is experiencing a year of extreme weather events, with strong storms and temperature records this summer. Scientists say that climate change increases the frequency and intensity of these events.
The country is now on alert for the arrival of the typhoon, the sixth this year, which is approaching the east coast.
