Beijing suffers flash floods in worst storm for six decades

The worst storm in over 60 years submerged swathes of Beijing over the weekend, killing at least 37 people and forcing 50,000 to evacuate from the mountains surrounding the city.

Residents push a stranded car on a flooded street Beijing. Photo: Reuters

The storm, which began shortly after midday on Saturday, eventually saw many major thoroughfares turn into rivers as the city's sewer system overloaded.

By 10pm, almost seven inches of water had fallen, on average, across the vast city. Some areas saw as much as 18 inches.

On Beijing's third ring road, a bus was nearly wholly submerged and its passengers had to be rescued by the emergency services.

In the outlying district of Fangshan, there were reports yesterday of several potentially calamitous landslides and over a hundred cars being washed away.

Among the fatalities was a policeman killed by a fallen power line and a woman whose car was flooded in an underpass on the Chinese capital's second ring road. At one point, more than ten feet of water was measured on parts of the road, which is one of Beijing's main arteries.

The death toll is expected to rise further, with several more people reported missing. By Sunday morning, however, the rain had given way to clear skies.
At Beijing's airport, 500 outbound flights were cancelled, leaving 80,000 passengers stranded without operational trains to ferry them away.
However, there were several reports on Weibo, China's version of Twitter, of Beijing residents pulling together in the calamity, offering strangers lifts and even spare beds to shelter in overnight.
A group of foreigners also became a trending topic on the internet after swimming, with an inflatable ring, on a major traffic intersection.