At least 37 people were killed and more than 50,000 others displaced from their homes after the heaviest rains in 61 years brought life on the streets of China’s capital to a grinding halt this weekend.
The rains, which drenched Beijing for close to 12 hours starting Saturday evening, triggered a massive clean-up operation on Sunday as the local government mobilised 12,000 people to drain 1 million cubic meters of waters from the city’s streets.
As of 5 pm on Sunday evening, at least 37 people were reported killed, the municipal government said. Of them, 25 had drowned, while six died after their homes in suburban Beijing collapsed.
Train services were suspended and more than 80,000 people were reportedly left stranded at the capital airport, while at least 50,000 residents had to be relocated due to flooding, officials said.
Residents took to China’s popular Twitter equivalent, Sina Weibo, to post photographs of submerged cars and vent their anger at city authorities for building drainage systems that appeared to offer little help this past weekend. The rain in Beijing was the most discussed topic for the website's three hundred million users, triggering more than five million posts.
The rains, according to Weibo accounts, seemed to have brought out the best and worst in Beijing’s residents: several posts detailed heart-warming accounts of citizens offering free foods and shelter, stories that were highlighted by the State media on Sunday.
Others, however, complained of taxi drivers charging as much as 1,000 RMB (around Rs. 8,600) for short rides as traffic ground to a halt on grid-locked streets, and were unsure whether to be angered or amused by accounts of policemen issuing parking violation tickets to cars that had drifted far down the flooded streets.
