At least 20 dead across Beijing and nearby Hebei as Tropical Storm Doksuri brings heaviest rain in 70 years

Over 100,000 people evacuated in Chinese capital, with 11 deaths recorded there and another nine in neighbouring Hebei province
Firefighter and township official die while working among victims. Helicopters sent to airdrop food and equipment to people on trapped trains

Accidents, extreme weather and disasters in China

Yuanyue Dangin Beijing

Published: 2:35pm, 1 Aug, 2023

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The death toll from downpours rarely seen in Beijing and caused by Tropical Storm Doksuri’s northward movement through the country has risen to 11, with 27 people still missing as China’s capital recorded its heaviest rainfall in more than 70 years.

The storm has also affected other parts of northern China, with at least nine people dead in neighbouring Hebei province, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

On Tuesday afternoon, President Xi Jinping called for a comprehensive search-and-rescue operation to save residents missing or trapped in floodwaters and demanded that authorities minimise casualties from the disaster.

The Beijing Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said on Tuesday morning that the toll included four deaths in Mentougou district, four in Changping, two in Fangshan and one in Haidian district.

It said the death toll included a firefighter on a rescue mission and a township official who died when inspecting storm damage.

02:15

11 dead, 27 missing in Beijing floods as Tropical Storm Doksuri lashes northern China

More than 44,000 people were affected in the city’s 13 districts, and 127,000 people were evacuated, according to the government department responsible for flood control.

Beijing’s meteorological service said that an average of 260 millimetres (10.2 inches) of rain had fallen across the city between 8pm on Saturday and 7am on Tuesday.

The figures surpass the extraordinary rainstorm disaster of July 2012 that killed 79 people in the city – described at the time by Beijing authorities as the worst since records began in 1951.

Three trains were stranded in the southwestern suburbs of Beijing on their way to the city centre, with one stopping on higher ground at a railway station in Mentougou district, according to media reports.

Typhoon Doksuri hammers China, bringing floods and landslides

CCTV said the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) land forces sent four helicopters early on Tuesday morning to airdrop food, raincoats and blankets to people on the trapped trains and to transfer the injured.

Army personnel will also go to a secondary school in Mentougou to evacuate trapped people, CCTV said. The mountainous and mainly rural western district was most affected by the storm.

On Monday night, mobile communications were down in five townships in Mentougou, and power was cut off by floodwaters in parts of the district.

A traditional gate stands amid the floodwaters in the Miaofengshan area on the outskirts of Beijing. Photo: AP

Videos and pictures taken by the media and circulated on social media showed several roads in Mentougou and neighbouring Fangshan district flooded and cars swept away, and a fallen bridge in Fengtai district, also in southwestern Beijing. In the western Shijingshan district, the ground gave way near a shopping centre that had opened in June.

Data from Variflight.com, a civil aviation statistics website, showed that by Tuesday morning, the storm had forced Beijing Capital International Airport to cancel 70 flights for the day. The city’s other airport, Daxing International Airport, which opened in 2019 and is in badly affected southern Beijing, cancelled more than 300 flights.

01:47

Super typhoon Doksuri batters Taiwan on its way to China’s southeast

In Hebei, around 540,000 residents were affected by flooding, and more than 840,000 had relocated as of Tuesday afternoon, the province’s flood control headquarters said.

Numerous social media users reported that Zhuozhou, a city to the southwest of Beijing, was hit hard, posting images of housing where the ground floor had been flooded.

Some private rescue forces are said to be handling pleas for help on social media.

State news agency Xinhua reported urban flooding also happened in Jinan, Shandong province.

On Monday, the Ministry of Water Resources, the top government department coordinating flood prevention in China, said waters in 13 rivers in the Hai River basin – which includes parts of Beijing, Hebei, Shanxi and Tianjin – had risen above the warning level.

The ministry said on Tuesday afternoon that it had raised the emergency response for flood prevention in the Hai River basin to the highest level.

Severe flooding was also reported along the Yongding River, a tributary of the Hai, near one of the freestyle skiing and snowboarding venues for last year’s Beijing Winter Olympics.

Further downstream, Tianjin had relocated more than 35,000 people as of Tuesday afternoon as part of its flood preparations, Xinhua said.

Tropical Storm Doksuri landed in the southeastern coastal province of Fujian on Thursday and made its way north to parts of China that have rarely been badly affected by typhoons in the past.

On Saturday night, China’s National Meteorological Centre issued its first rainstorm red alert – the highest in the country’s four-tier weather warning system – since 2011.

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Beijing lowered its rainstorm warning to the third level, or yellow, on Tuesday morning. But the city’s flood control office said there remained a risk of flooding and geological disasters in mountainous areas.

It advised people not to go out unless necessary. On Tuesday, the second level orange alert remained in place for Mentougou district.