In Beijing's flood-hit suburban districts of Miyun, Huairou, Yanqing and Fangshan, local volunteers have teamed up with firefighters to pull trapped residents to safety, as the Chinese capital endures relentless torrential rainfall over the past few days.
Since the onset of the current round of intense rainfall, Beijing had recorded an average precipitation of 165.9 mm citywide as of midnight Monday. The northern mountainous areas bore the brunt, with Miyun alone receiving 543.4 mm -- the highest rainfall -- while neighboring Huairou District experienced the peak intensity.
The Beijing municipal flood control headquarters reported Tuesday that the rainfall had left 30 people dead in the city as of midnight Monday. The deaths occurred in the northern mountainous districts, with 28 in Miyun and two in Yanqing.
Some residents with forklifts or ships have spared no efforts to rescue trapped people in the flood-hit area.
"We have almost evacuated all residents in this area. We're all locals, and we have forklifts and boats, so we've organized ourselves to rescue and evacuate people. This man, a fisherman with very good swimming skills, has used a boat to evacuate a total of 17 people to safe areas. This man uses the forklift to evacuate people nearly 10 times, saving more than 80 lives. The firefighters are not familiar with the terrain here like us, so we led the way and spontaneously help evacuate residents," said a villager.
So far, a total of 80,332 people have been relocated across Beijing. The three districts with the highest number of evacuees are Miyun and Huairou in the northeast, and Fangshan in southwest. Miyun has relocated 16,934 people across 19 townships.
The National Development and Reform Commission has urgently allocated 200 million yuan (27.87 million U.S. dollars) from the central government budget to support Beijing's post-flood emergency recovery efforts.
The funds will primarily be used to facilitate urgent repairs to damaged infrastructure and public service facilities, including transportation networks, water conservancy systems, and medical institutions, in severely affected areas such as Miyun and Huairou, to accelerate the restoration of normal life and production.
Locals help firefighters rescue, evacuate flood-trapped residents in suburban Beijing
