China's capital city Beijing and its neighboring Tianjin Municipality and Hebei Province are ramping up recovery efforts after major downpours caused considerable damage in many hillside rural areas.
Beijing has started door-to-door safety checks in the affected areas, with licensed structural safety assessors dispatched to evaluate conditions on every flood-damaged home.
"I'm waiting to see if my house is safe to go back to. If so, I'd like to gather my things, move back, and resume my normal life," said Li Shunli, a resident of Liulimiao, the worst-hit town in Beijing's Huairou District.
Authorities will seal off condemned buildings and draft individual resettlement plans based on the evaluation results.
"We are striving to assess every damaged house with a comprehensive safety screening in the shortest time possible," explained Wang Xiaowei, head of the housing safety and equipment management service center of Huairou District Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.
Insurance payouts are also moving rapidly. Beijing's financial watchdog has activated an emergency mechanism that waives on-site inspections, towing fees and weather certificates for water-logged vehicles.
As of 17:00 Sunday, city insurers had received 5,330 claims worth an estimated 155 million yuan (about 21 million U.S. dollars); 2,100 cases have already been settled, while new claims and loss assessment for claims settlement are still ongoing.
In Hebei Province, affected residents have been temporarily settled in well-staffed and supplied shelters as relief teams conduct cleaning and disinfection work in the flooded areas.
Beijing renewed a blue alert, the lowest level in a four-tier warning system, for heavy rain on Sunday, expecting significant rainfall between Monday and Tuesday.
Hebei issued a yellow alert for mountain torrents and ordered local governments to closely monitor rainfall.
Tianjin's Jizhou District is also carefully monitoring the weather and water levels while deploying flood prevention measures.
Post-flood recovery efforts pick up in Beijing, neighboring regions
Post-flood recovery efforts pick up in Beijing, neighboring regions
Post-flood recovery efforts pick up in Beijing, neighboring regions
