At Least 20 are dead and 27 are missing in Floods Surrounding China’s capital, Beijing

At least 20 people have died and 27 are still missing as a result of days of abnormally severe rainfall in the Beijing area of China, according to official media on Tuesday.

Homes have been inundated, and roads have been destroyed.

Authorities closed train stations in response to the flooding and relocated residents of high-risk regions to school gyms.

The raging seas swept away cars and heaped them into piles. Beijing typically experiences mild, dry summers, but this summer has seen record-breakingly long days of high temperatures.

The volume of rainfall is uncommon in Beijing. Numerous people have died as a result of flooding in other parts of northern China that hardly ever receive such heavy rain.

Every summer, huge areas of China experience seasonal flooding, especially in the semitropical south, while the worst floods in some northern regions in the past 50 years have been recorded this year.

President Xi Jinping ordered local governments to go “all out” to rescue those stranded and lessen the loss of life and property damage as a sign of urgency. In the highlands to the west of Beijing’s city center, 11 people were confirmed dead and 27 were reported missing by state media.

In Hebei province, which is close to the city and the source of much of its food and labor, nine additional deaths were reported. State broadcaster CCTV reported that more than 500,000 people had been affected by the floods but did not specify how many had been relocated.

Early in July, floods in Chongqing’s southwest region claimed the lives of at least 15 people, while Liaoning’s far northwest province, which is home to 5,590 people, required an evacuation.

Residents in the Hubei province in central China were confined to their houses and cars by downpours.

In 1998, China saw its deadliest and most damaging floods in recent memory, killing 4,150 people, the majority of whom were located around the Yangtze River. In the central province of Henan in 2021, flooding claimed the lives of almost 300 individuals.

On July 20 of that year, a record amount of rain swamped the provincial capital of Zhengzhou, turning the streets into raging rivers and flooding at least a portion of a subway line.