Due to heavy rainfall in and around the Chinese capital Beijing, at least thirty people were killed, reports the Chinese state news agency Xinhua on Tuesday. More than 80,000 people have been evacuated because of the bad weather.
On images, flooded neighborhoods and washed away roads can be seen. The weather services in China had already warned in recent days about floods and landslides due to the extreme rainfall. Since the start of the weekend, up to more than 540 millimeters of rain has fallen in and around Beijing.
Most of the dead fell in the mountainous district of Miyun in the northeast of the capital. There were 136 villages without electricity on the night from Monday to Tuesday. All schools in the area remain closed.
President Xi Jinping has announced a large-scale search and rescue operation. “No effort is too much to find and save people who are missing or who are stuck, to evacuate people from affected areas and to limit the number of victims as much as possible,” he said on Chinese television on Monday evening.
According to the latest predictions, the heavy rain will certainly continue until Tuesday afternoon.