Beijing receives heaviest rainfall since records began 140 years ago

China continues to be battered by the torrential rains as capital Beijing drowns in water. On Tuesday, the weather service informed that the city's had received the "heaviest rainfall in 140 years" since record-keeping began.

"The maximum value of rainfall recorded during this storm, which was 744.8 millimetres, occurred at the Wangjiayuan Reservoir in Changping," the Beijing Meteorological Service said.

Up until Tuesday (August 1), at least 20 people had died while 27remained missing as heavy rainfall made the job difficult for rescue authorities.

More than 52,000 have been evacuated from Beijing alone since the start of the rain, exacerbated by Doksuri, one of the strongest typhoons to hit the mainland in years.

In the Fangshan district, power to some 60,000 homes was knocked out.

Battered Beijing

The rivers in the country have swollen to record levels, forcing the authorities to use a flood storage reservoir in Beijing for the first time since it was first built, over 25 years ago.

A military unit comprising 26 soldiers and four helicopters was pressed into service on Tuesday to deliver hundreds of food packages and ponchos to people stranded in and around a train station in Beijing's hard-hit Mentougou district.

According to state media reports, some 125,000 people from high-risk areas inZhuozhou, southwest of Beijing, have been moved to shelters as well.

Taking stock of the situation, President Xi Jinping issued an order to the local governments, urging them to go "all out" to rescue those trapped and minimise loss of life and property damage.

Notably, it was in 1998 that China witnessed the deadliest and most destructive floods when over 4,000 people died,most of them along the Yangtze River.

Around 300 died in 2021 when the central province of Henan was flooded. Record rainfall that year also inundated the provincial capital of Zhengzhou, turning streets into rushing rivers and flooding at least part of a subway line.

Chinese forecasters also warned about the approach of another storm named ‘Khanun’, which is expected to rapidly gain strength and strike China’s densely populated coast next week. While Doksuri got downgraded from a typhoon, the Chinese weather agency upgraded Khanun to typhoon from tropical storm status on Sunday.

(With inputs from agencies)

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