Affected by the super typhoon “Du Surui”, Beijing, Hebei, Tianjin and other places began to experience torrential rain on the 29th. .
According to sources from governments at all levels in Beijing, as of Tuesday, 27 people have lost contact. A total of 44,673 people have been affected in 13 districts of Beijing, 127,000 people have been relocated, and 60,000 households in Fangshan District have lost power.
According to local media reports, the hardest-hit areas in Beijing are concentrated in Mentougou, Fangshan, Changping, Fengtai and Daxing in the west.
The super heavy rainfall not only brought disasters to Beijing, but also heavy rainstorms and floods in neighboring Tianjin and parts of Hebei.
According to the decision of China’s National Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, the flood was released to some areas in Hebei and Tianjin in the early morning of August 1, including Tianjin’s Jinghai, Xiqing District and Hebei Zhuozhou.
Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Studies (IPE), a Chinese environmental protection organization, believes that flood discharge will cause great losses to the property and life of residents in the relevant areas, and the government needs to take “market-oriented” measures, such as property insurance, to reduce flood damage. Loss.
“The Pan-region is a long-term plan, so residents must be psychologically prepared,” he told ABC Chinese.
“They made some sacrifices for other regions and should be compensated accordingly.”
Dr Xu Hongzhang, a postdoctoral fellow in the Australian National University’s School of Natural Sciences, is concerned about the scale of the flood.
He said that the Chinese government needs to control the flow of flood discharge to avoid threats to the lives and property of people downstream.
Floods in Beijing have now killed 11 people.
According to the records of the Central Meteorological Observatory, typhoon “Dusuri” landed in Xiamen on July 28, and then went all the way north. In addition to Beijing, torrential rains also occurred in Hebei, northern, central and southern China.
“The Taihang Mountains in the west of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei intersect with the easterly and southeast winds carrying water vapor, and the Yanshan Mountains in the north also have an angle with the water vapor channel,” the analysis reads.
“The water vapor is lifted by the topography and concentrated in the front of the mountain to form extremely heavy precipitation.
According to Chinese state media, the average hourly rainfall in Beijing over the past three days was 130.5 millimeters, but the most local drainage facilities can only handle 25.9 millimeters of rain.
“So everyone saw that the water in the river and the water in the gutters were all overflowing,” Dr. Xu said.
“Break bridges, cars, and even people.”
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family lost contact
The Mentougou district in western Beijing was severely affected by heavy rain and flooding. (AP: Ng Han Guan)
According to a report by the Chinese official media Xinhua News Agency, 62 villages in 7 townships in Beijing have experienced communication signal interruptions. At present, they can only rely on satellite phones for emergency communications such as emergency rescue.
The mother of Andy Li, a Beijing citizen, lives in Fangshan District, about 25 kilometers away from Mentougou, the hardest-hit area in the western suburbs. She lost contact with her mother around 10am on Monday.
Ms. Li, who works as an administrative clerk, said that since her mother’s mobile phone was always turned off, she and her family had mixed feelings about her mother’s whereabouts.
Anxious, Ms. Li filled in her information in the “Statistical Summary of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Rainstorm Help Information”. Since the flood broke out, netizens have spontaneously shared the form on social media, seeking mutual help.
“Because I didn’t feel it personally, but I read the messages sent by my family and it was really scary,” she stressed, emphasizing that the images of the flood made her feel shocking.
“Some residents have been transferred,” she said, “because the signal is not available, so they can’t understand[情况]”。
Netizens in Hebei and Beijing faced off on the social media Weibo following news of the flood release. Some netizens believe that Hebei people will bear the pressure and risks brought by the flood for Beijing.
“Hebei people’s life is not life? Did you release the flood? Didn’t you transfer the people before the flood?” Weibo netizen “Endless Xia Forever” wrote.
“If Beijing doesn’t discharge the flood, won’t your Tianjin and Hebei be flooded as usual? And Beijing is also controlling the amount of flood discharge. Who can predict natural disasters?” wrote another netizen.
Natural disaster? Man-made disaster?
A landslide occurred in the Miaofengshan area of Beijing’s Mentougou district on Tuesday. (AP: Ng Han Guan)
Jeff Si, a fitness trainer who lives in Shijingshan, Beijing, said that his life has been “greatly affected” due to the proximity of his area to Mentougou, which was hit hard by the disaster.
“Traffic is partially paralyzed, travel is very difficult, many buses are out of service, and many subway stations are closed. It is almost impossible to go out on foot,” Mr Si told ABC Chinese.
Some of his relatives were more severely hit, with “water almost up to the chest,” Mr Si said.
“All the shops downstairs were flooded, a lot of vehicles were soaked in water, the phenomenon of water accumulation in the underground garage was obvious, and the businesses on the ground floor suffered serious losses.”
“The main road was evacuated by the traffic police. After the flooding was severe, only special vehicles helped the trapped people,” he said.
“The 24-hour emergency line was notified and sludge disposal was carried out today.”
The rain in Beijing is still continuing. (AP: Andy Wong)
This is not the first time Beijing has experienced torrential rain and flooding.
On July 21, 2012, Beijing experienced the heaviest rainstorm since meteorological records began in 1951, killing 79 people and causing economic losses of up to 11.64 billion yuan (about 2.45 billion Australian dollars).
Professor Lu Duanfang, a professor at the School of Architectural Design and Planning at the University of Sydney, believes that Beijing’s floods are “mainly natural disasters” because the amount of precipitation exceeds the design limit of urban planning.
“This amount of precipitation is really too big, exceeding the designed water storage capacity,” Professor Lu told ABC Chinese.
According to Professor Lu, flooding is a long-standing problem in summer in China.
“Every year it rains there are floods in cities across China, so it’s not a one-off phenomenon,” she said.
“It’s mainly related to how urban design becomes more resilient to disasters, and what local governments should do to better prepare after the annual flood.”
sponge city
Some vehicles in the Mentougou area were washed away by the flood. (AP: Ng Han Guan)
Dr. Xu Hongzhang believes that Beijing has been building a “sponge city” flood management system in recent years.
“[政策]The idea was to avoid flooding and then efficiently collect rainwater, which would replenish groundwater,” he explained.
But Dr Hsu believes the strategy is now proving “not so good” because it cannot handle potential flooding from heavy rains.
From July 17 to 23, 2021, Henan, China experienced a historically rare torrential rainstorm and severe floods. The flood caused 398 deaths and missing persons, and the direct economic loss reached 120 billion yuan (approximately 25.23 billion Australian dollars), which attracted international attention.
Zhengzhou was also a pilot city for the “Sponge City” in Henan Province in 2016. In January 2018, “Zhengzhou Sponge City Special Plan (2017-2030)” was officially announced to the public.
“Actually, Zhengzhou was already reminded at that time, because Zhengzhou was also included in the list of 30 sponge city designs,” Dr. Xu said.
He explained that “sponge city” requires urban construction not to prioritize drainage, but to emphasize the use of a series of green measures to collect drainage. As early as 2019, Mentougou, the hardest-hit area of the flood, launched the “Sponge City Special Plan”.
“The original intention was to avoid flooding and then efficiently collect rainwater, which would replenish groundwater,” he said.
“The biggest problem is that when climate change comes and typhoons or heavy rainfall disasters brought about by climate change become more frequent and more intense, sponge cities are not a good idea.
“Without, let’s say, some amendments to the sponge city policy to increase the ability to deal with extreme weather, there may be more of this happening.”
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2023-08-01 09:59:43
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