Beijing rain: Death toll rises to 33, with 18 still missing

The death toll from the recent flooding in China’s capital has reached 33 individuals, which includes five rescuers while 18 are still missing after unprecedented heavy rain in recent weeks, damaging infrastructure and deluging swathes of the city’s suburbs and surrounding areas. The impact of this prolonged heavy rain has been particularly severe in the mountainous western outskirts of the city, where numerous areas have been affected. This has led to the unfortunate collapse of 59,000 homes, while close to 150,000 other homes have sustained varying degrees of damage. Moreover, the flooding has engulfed over 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of cropland, as confirmed by the city’s government. “I would like to express my deep condolences to those who died in the line of duty and the unfortunate victims,” Xia Linmao, Beijing’s vice-mayor, told a press conference, according to state broadcaster CCTV. Scores have died in the floods across northern China, with Beijing on Friday saying 147 deaths or disappearances last month were caused by natural disasters. Of those, 142 were caused by flooding or geological disasters, China’s Ministry of Emergency Management said.In Hebei province, which neighbours Beijing, 15 were reported to have died and 22 were missing. And in northeastern Jilin, 14 died and one person was reported missing on Sunday.Further north in Heilongjiang, state media reported dozens of rivers saw water levels rise above “warning markers” in recent days. “I still feel scared when I recall the recent flooding,” Zheng Xiaokang, a police officer from the province’s Jiangxi village, told the state-run Xinhua News Agency.“In the face of the persistent downpour and rising river water, the consequences would have been devastating had we not managed to timely evacuate the villagers,” Zheng said. Millions of people have been hit by extreme weather events and prolonged heatwaves around the globe in recent weeks, events that scientists say are being exacerbated by climate change. China’s deadliest and most destructive floods in recent history were in 1998, when 4,150 people died, most of them along the Yangtze River. In 2021, more than 300 people died in the central province of Henan. Record rainfall inundated the provincial capital of Zhengzhou on July 20 that year, turning streets into rushing rivers and flooding at least part of a subway line.