Days of heavy rain have killed at least 30 people in the mountainous northern outskirts of Beijing, state media reported Tuesday.
Intense rainstorms have battered northern China in recent days, triggering flooding and landslides. A landslide in Hebei province, which neighbors Beijing, killed four people, with eight others still missing, according to state media.
The rains intensified around the Chinese capital on Monday, killing 28 people in Miyun, an outlying mountainous district in the northeast; another two were killed in Yangqing, another northern district, China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported.
The downpours have also damanged dozens of roads and cut off electricity for 136 villages. More than 80,000 people have been relocated, including about 17,000 in Miyun, according to CCTV.
Footage circulating on social media shows brown floodwater sweeping through residential communities, washing away cars, knocking down electricity and turning streets into rivers in Miyun.
On Monday, Beijing issued its highest-level flood alert, urging residents to stay away from swelling rivers. The city’s meteorological observatory also issued a red alert for rainstorms – the highest in a four-tier system, warning of intensifying rain during the night and “extremely high risk” of mountain floods, mudslides and landslides in mountainous areas.
By Monday evening, authorities have ordered schools to be shut, all scenic spots across the city to be closed, and all rural homestays and campsites to suspend operations.
The heavy rainfall and the accompanying floods and geological disasters have caused “significant casualties and property losses” in Beijing and the northern provinces of Hebei, Jilin and Shandong, Chinese leader Xi Jinping said on Monday, according to CCTV.
Xi instructed officials to make “all-out effort” to search and rescue those still missing, properly evacuate resettle residents at risk and minimize casualties to the greatest extent possible.
This is a developing story and will be updated.