As Typhoon Doksuri s leftovers dumped the highest rainfall in a decade over portions of northern China, deadly downpours caused landslides and floods that damaged roads and carried away automobiles in Beijing.
According to footage posted on official television and social media, two days of rain have overflowed riverbeds at the western edge of the Chinese capital, turning once calm streams into furious floods that have washed into people’s houses and destroyed entire streets. The rains caused by Doksuri in parts of Beijing have been horrifying.
Furthermore, in the CCTV footage, more than 127,000 people have been evacuated from the city and at least 11 individuals have died and 27 more have gone missing. In other parts of northern China, nine deaths were also recorded.
Harsh Weather
The downpours of Doksuri were much harsher in the western areas, which were the most impacted and where the majority of deaths were reported. According to statistics from Beijing’s meteorological department, the average rainfall in the Mentougou area was above 18 inches, while the adjacent Fangshan had 16 inches of rain.
The storm is the worst to hit Beijing since the 2012 floods, which claimed 77 lives and which the government originally attempted to hide.
Typhoons and torrential rains are a summertime occurrence in China, but scientists warn that climate change has increased the frequency and damage of these yearly storms. In 2021, flooding in Zhengzhou, the heart of Henan province, claimed at least 300 lives.
“The affected people should be properly resettled, and the damaged infrastructures … repaired as soon as possible to restore the normal production and living order,” Xi said, according to state-run news agency Xinhua.
The Doksuri Story
Although Chinese authorities are yet to disclose estimated financial losses, they had issued a warning before the storm’s arrival. Declaring that heavy rains may harm crops and fields just weeks before the typical autumn harvest.
Doksuri is one of the most powerful typhoons to strike China in recent times. In the Fujian coastline province in the southeast, where it made landfall, more than 2.6 million people were reportedly impacted, according to officials.
According to the state-run publication The Paper, more than 300 individuals who were stuck in a residential complex in Zhuozhuo, a city in the nearby Hebei province of Beijing, were among those caught up in the pandemonium.
In Hebei province, nine people perished, six are still missing, and an additional 847,400 residents were evacuated, said to state news agency CCTV on Tuesday.
A state-run radio station stated that hundreds of railway passengers were stuck in the Beijing suburbs.
Changing Directions
According to the China Meteorological Administration, Doksuri might pass by or make landfall on Taiwan’s southwest coast before crashing into the Chinese coastal province of Fujian on Friday.
Taiwan most recently had a typhoon in 2019.
The Hong Kong Observatory predicts that as Doksuri moves towards China, it will bring extremely hot weather to the region starting in the middle of the week, including Hong Kong.
