Beijing: Rains and floods kill at least 34 people

Floods and heavy rains have killed 30 people in Beijing, authorities announced Tuesday, bringing the death toll from the storms ravaging the region to at least 34.

In a statement, the municipal government said 28 people died in the worst-affected Miyun district and two in the Yanqing district, both located on the outskirts of Beijing.

More than 80,000 residents were evacuated from the city, including about 17,000 in Miyun, the same statement added. Heavy rain returned to the area overnight Monday.

That day, authorities also reported a landslide that killed four people in rural Luanping, neighboring Hebei province, where eight others remain missing. A resident told the state-run Beijing News that communications were down and he was unable to contact his family.

The storms had caused an average rainfall of more than 16 centimeters in Beijing by midnight Tuesday, with two towns in Miyun recording 54 centimeters of rain, according to the municipal government.

Authorities in Miyun have opened the floodgates of a dam that reached its highest level since its construction in 1959, and warned residents to stay away from rivers downstream, whose levels will continue to rise due to forecasts of more rain .

Chinese Premier Li Qiang said Monday that floods in Miyun had caused "severe casualties" and called for rescue operations, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The storm caused power outages in more than 130 villages, destroyed communication lines, and damaged more than 30 sections of roads . In the Miyun area, flooding swept away cars and toppled electricity poles.

In Taishitun, about 100 kilometers northeast of central Beijing, uprooted trees were piled up with their roots exposed, and streets were covered in mud, which reached the walls of buildings.

"The waters came suddenly, so fast and sudden. In no time, everything was flooding," said Zhuang Zhelin, who was cleaning the mud with his family at his construction materials store, as quoted by the Associated Press.

The neighbor, Wei Zhengming, a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, was shoveling mud from his clinic, wearing slippers and with his feet covered in mud. "Everything was flooded, front and back. I fled upstairs and waited for rescue. I thought: if no one comes to get us, we're in serious trouble," he said.

Beijing authorities activated the highest level of emergency on Monday night, ordering the population to stay at home, closing schools, suspending construction work and outdoor tourist activities, measures that will remain in effect until further notice.

The Chinese capital was expecting the heaviest rain this Tuesday morning , with precipitation up to 30 centimeters in some areas.

According to Xinhua, about 10,000 people were also evacuated from Jizhou district in the neighboring city of Tianjin.

The central government announced it would send 50 million yuan (about six million euros) to Hebei and deployed a high-level team of rescuers to support affected cities, including Chengde, Baoding and Zhangjiakou.

Beijing and Hebei had already suffered severe floods in 2023 that caused dozens of deaths.