As Typhoon Doksuri‘s leftovers dumped the highest rainfall in a decade over portions of northern China, deadly downpours caused landslides and floods that damaged roads and carried away cars in Beijing.
According to footage posted on official television and social media, two days of rain have overflowed riverbeds near the western edge of the Chinese capital, turning once-calm streams into furious torrents that have washed into people’s houses and destroyed entire streets.
According to state broadcaster CCTV, more than 127,000 people have been evacuated from the city and at least 11 individuals have died and 27 more have gone missing.
According to CNN Weather, the vast metropolis, which is home to around 22 million people, had an average of 175.7 millimetres (almost 7 inches) of rain over the course of 48 hours.
The downpours were much worse in the western districts, which were the hardest hit and where the majority of fatalities were reported. According to data from Beijing’s meteorological department, the average rainfall in the Mentougou area was above 18 inches, while the nearby Fangshan experienced 16 inches of rain.
The storm is the deadliest to hit Beijing since 2012 floods, which claimed 77 lives and which the government originally attempted to hide.
Typhoons and torrential rains are a summertime occurrence in China, but experts warn that climate change has increased the frequency and destruction of these yearly rains. In 2021, flooding in Zhengzhou, the heart of Henan province, claimed at least 300 lives.
CCTV broadcast videos of a road bridge that had split in half in Beijing, with a queue of motorists on top as many vehicles in the river below were being washed away.
Videos published on X, formerly known as Twitter, showed footage of a sinkhole that appeared outside of a west Beijing mall and flooding at the Beijing Daxing Airport.
While trying to flee the advancing floods, rescue personnel and locals could be seen in other footage wading through water that was waist deep.
State media stated that Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered an increase in search and rescue activities on Tuesday.
According to state-run news agency Xinhua, Xi stated that “the affected people should be properly resettled, and the damaged infrastructures… repaired as soon as possible to restore the normal production and living order.”
Although they had issued a warning prior to the storm’s arrival that torrential rains could harm crops and fields just weeks before the typical autumn harvest, Chinese authorities have not yet provided estimates of probable financial damages.
One of the most powerful typhoons to strike China recently was Doksuri. In the Fujian coastline province in the southeast, where it made landfall, more than 2.6 million people were reportedly impacted, according to authorities.
As it moved north, the typhoon lost strength and became a storm, although it still dumped copious amounts of rain.
At least 39 people were killed by the typhoon in the Philippines before it made landfall in Fujian, and it also devastated sections of southern Taiwan.
According to a state-run radio station, hundreds of passengers aboard trains that were left stranded on the rural outskirts of Beijing were among those affected by the chaos.
Based on interviews with two passengers travelling from Zhangjiakou, a city in the neighbouring province of Hebei that served as the site of some of Beijing’s 2022 Winter Olympics events, to Mentougou, a state-affiliated TV station in the southwest province of Guizhou reported that some passengers were stranded for 30 hours without food.
“As the rain continues to fall, there appear to be landslip warning signs in the front. A train cannot move either forward or backward. One passenger told the TV network that some passengers were already feeling queasy.
“Supplies can’t get in, and people are starving… We are unable to leave since the car door is locked, according to the second passenger.
According to Xinhua, which cited Beijing’s state railway operator, at least 1,870 passengers and 68 crew members were finally brought to safe ground by Monday afternoon after being stuck on two trains.
According to the rail operator, a different train was still stuck at a different station, where staff members had to wade through deep muck to bring food and water to the stranded passengers.
There is little hope of respite even as Doksuri fades away.
With storm tides expected to batter coastal parts of eastern Zhejiang province till Thursday, authorities are bracing for inbound Khanun, the sixth typhoon scheduled to hit China this year.
