TERRIFYING videos have emerged showing roads being turned into rivers after horror floods “not seen in a hundred years” battered China.
At least 38 people have lost their lives, and over 80,000 residents have been evacuated due to the heavy rains affecting areas including the capital, Beijing.
Swaths of northern China were lashed by torrential downpours that sparked landslides and flooding, state media said on Tuesday.
Footage shows a powerful gush of water flooding the streets.
Murky water submerged homes, cars and roads – even highways.
Uprooted trees lay in piles in the town of Taishitun, about 60 miles northeast of central Beijing.
Weather agencies have delivered the second-highest rainstorm alert for Beijing, along with neighboring regions Hebei and Tianjin, in addition to 10 other provinces, as reported by state news agency Xinhua.
The rains are expected to last till Wednesday, it added.
The heavy rainstorms have so far killed at least 38 people in Beijing.
And more than 80,000 people have been evacuated in the Chinese capital alone, local state-run outlet Beijing Daily said on social media.
The death toll was highest in Miyun, a suburban district northeast of the city centre, it said.
Locals have said that the “rain was unusually heavy, it’s not normally like this.”
One resident of Beijing described the floods as something seen “once in a hundred years”.
Nearby, the spillways surged with powerful flows as water escaped the Miyun Reservoir, which officials noted has reached record levels since it was built in 1959.
Huairou district in the north of the city and Fangshan in the southwest were also badly affected, state media said.
Dozens of roads have been closed and over 130 villages have lost electricity, Beijing Daily said.
“Please pay attention to weather forecasts and warnings and do not go to risk areas unless necessary,” the outlet said.
More than 10,000 people also evacuated their homes in the neighbouring port city of Tianjin, which saw major flash floods, according to Global Times.
In Hebei, near the capital, a landslide in a village close to Chengde resulted in the deaths of eight individuals, with four others still unaccounted for, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
On social media, users shared anxious accounts of being unable to reach family members who lived in Chengde’s mountainous Xinglong county.
Local authorities have issued flash flood warnings through Tuesday evening.
President Xi Jinping of China urged authorities late Monday to prepare for the worst and expedite the evacuation of residents from flood-prone areas.
Beijing Daily said local officials had “made all-out efforts to search and rescue missing persons… and made every effort to reduce casualties”.
The government has allocated 350 million yuan ($49million) for disaster relief in nine regions hit by heavy rains.
A separate 200 million yuan has been set aside for the capital, the broadcaster said.
Natural disasters are common across China, particularly in the summer when some regions experience heavy rain while others bake in searing heat.
In 2023, intense rainfall claimed the lives of over 80 people across northern and northeastern China, including at least 29 fatalities in Hebei, where severe flooding destroyed homes and farmland.
Some reports at the time suggested the province shouldered the burden of a government decision to divert the deluge away from Beijing.
