Flooding in Beijing has resulted in 44 deaths, including 31 residents at a care home for elderly people in the Miyun District. The care home, situated in Taishitun Town, primarily cares for those who are severely disabled, low-income, or receiving minimal living allowances. About 77 elderly residents were inside the home when the floods hit, trapping about 40 of them as water levels rose to almost 2 meters (6 feet).
Local officials have admitted that there were “loopholes in emergency planning” and said the incident was a painful lesson that served as “a wake-up call”. “For a long time, the central area of the town where the nursing home is located had been considered safe, so it was not included in the evacuation scope of the plan,” a Chinese official said at a press conference on Thursday. “This reveals that there are loopholes in our emergency planning. Our understanding of extreme weather has been insufficient, and this painful lesson has served as a wake-up call.”
The floods have wreaked havoc across swathes of China, with record heatwaves hitting the eastern regions earlier this month and separate floods sweeping the country’s southwest. In nearby Hebei province, 16 people died as a result of extreme rainfall, officials said. In the city of Chengde, eight were killed, with 18 still unaccounted for.
Extreme weather, which experts link to climate change, has increasingly threatened China’s residents and economy, especially its trillion-dollar agriculture sector. Natural disasters in the first half of the year have cost China 54.11 billion yuan ($7.5 billion; £5.7 billion), its emergency management ministry said earlier this month. Flooding accounted for more than 90% of the losses.
Beijing is no stranger to flooding, particularly in the summer months. One of the deadliest in recent memory occurred in July 2012, when 190mm of rain drenched the city in a day, killing 79 people. This summer, floods have caused widespread damage, with two people killed and 10 people going missing in Shandong province earlier this month when Typhoon Wipha struck eastern China. Two weeks earlier, a landslide killed three people in Ya’an city, in the country’s southwest.
Yu Weiguo, Party Secretary of Miyun district, expressed deep sorrow over the incident, saying, “These elderly people were around the same age as my parents, yet they are gone due to the torrential rain disaster. Here, I express my condolences to all the victims and my sympathies to their families.” Upon deep reflection on this incident, officials recognize that there are still many areas in their work that need improvement.