BEIJING RESIDENTS EXPRESSED fury today after the worst rains to hit the Chinese capital in more than 60 years left at least 37 people dead, with another seven still missing.
By this morning, nearly nine million users of China’s popular Sina Weibo microblog had expressed anger over insufficient official warnings, and at the way the city’s outdated drains failed to cope.
“If the drainage system had been good, if the warning system had been put in place in a timely manner, if people had been told to stay home, would so many people have lost their cherished lives?” posted one, named Bijiexiang.
At least 25 people drowned in Saturday’s rains, the heaviest in the city since records began in 1951. Six died in housing collapses, five were electrocuted and one person was struck by lighting.
The same storm left another 15 people dead and 19 missing in the neighbouring province of Hebei, the China News Service said.
The rains and flooding caused 10 billion yuan-worth (€1.3 billion) of damage in Beijing, while nearly 66,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes, state media said, citing the city government.
“Chinese cities are apparently unpractised in facing disasters such as Saturday’s torrential downpour,” the Global Times daily said in today’s editorial critical of the authorities’ disaster preparedness.
If so much chaos can be triggered in Beijing, the capital of the nation, problems in urban infrastructure of many other places can only be worse.
Pictures showed entire parking lots flooded, while rescue and traffic workers were seen diving underwater to unclog roadside drains as helpless drivers looked on from partially submerged cars.
Many roads in the capital were inundated by up to a metre of water, while 500 outbound flights were cancelled and at least 80,000 passengers stranded.
Parts of the Beijing-Guangdong highway, a major arterial route to the south, remained flooded today, the Beijing traffic bureau said.
Much of Beijing’s central drainage system dates from imperial times, including the moat around the Forbidden City and a waterway around the former city wall that empties into the centuries-old Grand Canal east of the capital.
The rain lasted for about 16 hours on Saturday and up to 18 inches fell on the outlying mountainous district of Fangshan, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Parts of it were devastated, including the popular Shidu scenic area where up to 10,000 tourists were stranded during the downpour, reports said.
Some state-run media focused on how the rains brought the city of more than 20 million people together, with police and traffic workers joining hands with ordinary citizens to rescue stranded motorists.
According to a Beijing television report, in the worst of the downpours ordinary motorists offered free rides to those who were stranded, including some of the 80,000 travellers stuck at the airport after flight cancellations.
Xinhua reported that the rains had filled Beijing’s 17 major reservoirs, many of which had lacked water due to a 13-year drought.
But most web users took a more negative view.
“Beijing has been defeated by a huge rain storm, the city’s infrastructure has failed, there is nothing here to be proud of,” posted one on Sina Weibo, under the name Zhulidemixu.
Many microblog postings also expressed scepticism over the official death toll, saying the true figure was probably higher.
China’s finance ministry has allocated 120 million yuan (€15.5 million) in relief funds to help Beijing, neighbouring Tianjin city and Hebei province handle the disaster.
Xinhua also said eight people were confirmed dead due to heavy downpours in Sichuan province, in the nation’s southwest.
China is routinely ravaged by summertime flooding, which normally wreaks havoc in regions along the central Yangtze river and in the south.
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