RAIN HAVOC BEIJING SUFFERS FROM THE HEAVIEST RAIN IN SIXDECADES

By Li Li, Yuan Yuan & Yin Pumin

COVER STORY

RAIN HAVOCBEIJINGSUFFERSFROMTHEHEAVIEST RAININ SIXDECADES

By Li Li, Yuan Yuan & Yin Pumin

NOWHERE TO GO: On July 22, many passengers remain stranded in the Beijing Capital International Airport

The heaviest rain in six decades struck Beijing on July 21, leaving an average of 170 mm of precipitation across the entire city and 225 mm in the urban center. With an average annual precipitation of only 585 mm, the 16 hours of nearly constant downpour wreaked havoc on Beijing’s infrastructure.

The Beijing Flood Control Headquarters said on July 26 that at least 77 people were killed in rain-triggered disasters and accidents throughout the city.

Among them, 66 had been identifed, including fve people who died while carrying out rescue work, according to Pan Anjun, a spokesman for the headquarters.

Of the other 61 victims—36 men and 25 women—46 drowned and five perished from electric shock. Collapsed buildings took three lives and the death toll from mudslides was two. Traumatic shock, falling objects and lightning killed two, two and one, respectively.

Pan said that a further sharp increase in the death toll was unlikely because the search for missing persons was drawing to an end. “But we will not give up searching just yet,” he said.

Most of the bodies were found in suburban districts, including 38 bodies that were recovered in the hardest-hit suburban district of Fangshan.

Official statistics show that about 1.9 million people in 13 of Beijing’s 16 districts and counties were affected by the torrential rains, which also incurred 11.64 billion yuan ($1.82 billion) in economic losses. A total of 57,000 residents had been relocated citywide, including 20,990 in Fangshan alone. Hit by two mudslides, road traffc in Fangshan’s 12 towns and townships was disrupted and mobile telecommunication services and Internet access were cut off in six townships.

As many downtown streets and major thoroughfares were transformed into miniature canals within minutes, countless motorists had to abandon their broken-down vehicles in rapidly submerging streets to run for their lives. A 34-year-old man drowned in his sport utility vehicle when stranded in a low-lying stretch of the East Second Ring Road. Rescuers eventually pulled the car out of 3 meters of water.

The rains have caused serious damage to roads and bridges in Beijing, including 31 cave-ins. As water rose above 30 cm in at least 30 road sections, 85 bus routes were either adjusted or suspended. After water gushed into 12 subway stations, subway services were also partially interrupted.

Trains traveling on eight lines between Beijing and other cities were suspended as sections of railways were soaked in water. More than 500 flights out of Beijing were canceled or delayed.

As of July 24, auto insurance claims related to the rains, with an estimated value totaling 260 million yuan ($40.75 million), had been filed, as well as asset insurance claims of 270 million yuan ($42.32 million), according to statistics released by the Beijing Municipal Insurance Regulatory Commission on July 26.

The Beijing Municipal Commission of Rural Affairs said that agriculture suffered total economic losses of nearly 450 million yuan ($70.47 million) from the rain and ensuing flash floods and 2,867 hectares of vegetable fields were submerged. Claims made by farmers for flooded farmland and lost livestock were estimated at 71.8 million yuan ($11.24 million).

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Torrential rains ravaged 22 provinciallevel regions in the country since July 20, killing at least 111 and leaving another 47 missing, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said on July 24.

As of 2 p.m. on July 24, natural disasters triggered by the downpours had affected nearly 9.2 million people in 353 counties and forced the evacuation of nearly 1.18 million people, the ministry said.

Emergency relief

As Beijing was suffering from the deluge, Weibo, a Chinese micro-blog, played a very important role in providing help to people in need.

With more than 80,000 people stranded in the Beijing Capital International Airport, Wang Lu, a 29-year-old resident, initiated a“free ride” campaign. Wang posted on his Weibo page at 10:32 p.m. on July 21, calling volunteers driving private cars to the airport to pick up passengers for free.

Within two hours, more than 300 people joined him and drove to the airport. Police offcers in the airport opened a green lane for the free-ride cars and helped passengers aboard.“I was deeply touched by what they did,”said passenger Qing Qing. “I never thought I could get out of the airport in such heavy rain, as buses operated by the airport couldn’t work and only a few taxis came to the airport.”

Throughout the night, volunteers picked up more than 500 passengers from the airport.

“A group of primary students and teachers got trapped in a school in Fangshan due to food caused by heavy rains,” said microblogger Genqin in a post at 7:14 p.m. on July 21, asking for help.

After receiving the information, Beijing’s fre departments immediately dispatched a rescue team of 50 frefghters. Within one hour, all the students and teachers were rescued.

A total of 3,200 soldiers and more than 4,000 traffc police were mobilized for rescue and evacuation missions across Beijing on July 21. More than 12,000 drainage workers and water utility workers pumped out nearly 1.4 million cubic meters of water.

The city’s sanitation workers also went above and beyond the call of duty to clean up the mess caused by the fooding. One sanitation worker was spotted submerging himself almost completely to clear a blocked sewage drain on Baiyi Road in Haidian District.

Other workers were seen acting as “human road signs” near the Beitaiping Bridge, standing in deep pools and guiding vehicles to evade manholes, as a lot of manhole covers were forced out by underground water pressure.

A 900-meter-long section of the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao Expressway accumulated 200,000 cubic meters of floodwaters after a nearby dike broke following hours of continuous rain, an amount equivalent to a small reservoir,and dozens of vehicles were submerged beneath an average of four meters of water.

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Divers from fire departments and the Bluesky rescue team of the Beijing Red Cross Foundation rushed to the fooded road section and started search and rescue work in the rain. The divers worked 10 hours continuously in the cold, muddy water.

“The underwater visibility was nearly to zero and we could only position and count the submerged autos with our bare hands. Most of us were cut by the broken glass,” said Wang Liang, a member of the Bluesky rescue team.

“With one hand protecting my face, I used the other fst to pull the mud underground and move forward. A robe was linking my waist and other crew members on the boat,” said another diver Hu Xipeng.

With the efforts of over 500 rescuers, a 1-km-long drainage canal was dug to drain the floods into the groundwork of an underconstruction sewage treatment plant nearby.

Traffc on the Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao Expressway resumed on July 24 after divers removed 81 stranded vehicles.

Lessons to learn

Shocked by the huge casualties in the rains on July 21, Zheng Yuanjie, a well-known author of children’s books, said in a Weibo post that if the authorities had sent out warnings promptly, people’s lives might have been saved.

In fact, the authorities had been preparing for a plan for the storm a week before and issued rainstorm alert warnings prior to the downpours, according to the Beijing Meteorological Bureau. However, many residents said they did not receive any warning messages and some other complained that the early warnings were too vague and hoped for detailed explanation of the disasters behind the warnings.

“While issuing warnings, the government should also warn residents to stay indoors through text messages and inform drivers of fooded road sections,” said Shi Anbin, a professor at Tsinghua University.

In response, Qu Xiaobo, Deputy Director of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, said on July 22 that it was technically impossible to send so many short messages within a short time, as there are limited base stations in Beijing.

However, Qu’s comments were denied by mobile network operators, which said that there are no obstacles in sending short messagesen masse.

“The ultimate problem, however, is not whether the authorities have sent text messages. Even if everybody received a text, they would still have to face a problematic drainage system that caused fooding in the city,”said Zhang Xin, an associate professor at the School of Public Administration of Renmin University of China.

Zhang called on the authorities to refect on the infrastructure and city planning and hold accountable departments that fail to perform their assigned function according to the emergency response plans.

Once again, the question of the quality of the capital’s infrastructure, especially its drainage system that has long been criticized as insuffcient to cope with the rainfall in recent years, was brought to the front stage.

During the downpours on July 21, transportation in the lower areas of the city was paralyzed, especially in some underpasses with poor drainage systems. Deep water was logged at 52 sites in downtown areas, including many underpasses.

Many skyscrapers have been erected and densely populated communities have been built in recent years due to a buoyant property market. However, the drainage system has not been upgraded accordingly and remains at a low standard, city planning experts complain.

According to the Beijing Water Authority, Beijing’s drainage system was designed to cope with precipitation of 36-56 mm per hour. However, the city received 170 mm of precipitation on average on July 21, while the urban area saw an average of 225 mm during the 16-hour deluge.

Beijing’s drainage system is made up mainly of old facilities. Some key drains even date back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). When rain is too heavy, administrators have to order the opening of drainage covers to allow foodwaters to subside faster.

“Beijing’s drainage network is already outdated, although a lot of repair work has been done to maintain it,” said Zhang Junfeng, founder of the non-government water resource watchdog Happy Water Journeys.

Dai Shenzhi, a professor at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning of Shanghai-based Tongji University, said that as there is less natural vegetation to absorb rain, more urban development increases the risk of fooding. “It would be much more feasible to allocate areas of wetland to be used as overspills to guard against foods,” Dai said.

Echoing Dai’s views, Zhang said that the country’s obsession with rapid development has many local governments paying little attention to building wetlands, as it won’t result in economic benefts.

The design of underpasses in Beijing has also become the target of public complaints.

“The design standards of underpasses are poor because they were constructed in the 1980s,” said Zheng Jiang, Deputy General Manager of Beijing Drainage Group in a press release on July 22. “It makes our underpass drainage system vulnerable.”

OUT OF THE MUD: The interior of a previously submerged bus is coated with mud

According to him, many of Beijing’s 78 existing underpasses have a limited pumping capacity and are capable of draining away water only if the rainfall is less than 30 mm an hour, making traffc jams in rainy weather a regular sight.

Pan Anjun, Deputy Director of the Beijing Water Authority, said that thorough examinations of underpasses will be conducted, and upgrading plans will be made for every one of them to improve drainage.

According to a report released by the Beijing Drainage Group in early July, all the existing underpasses will be reconstructed by the end of 2015. More powerful pumps will be installed and adjustable reservoirs will be built for some underpasses.

“One solution to improve the poor drainage system in Beijing is to gradually upgrade the underground conduits and design standards,” said Liu Dongwei, chief architect of the China Institute of Building Standard Design and Research. “But it’s not a job that will be completed soon.”

Liu suggested that the new design standards should be implemented as part of the whole city development plan, and more permeable materials should be adopted in more communities.

“As a megalopolis, Beijing is a combination of old and new,” Mayor Guo Jinlong told national broadcaster CCTV on July 22, the day after the torrential rain. “The storm proved that the city’s infrastructure facilities are still weak. We will continue to update our emergency plans, improve the construction of infrastructure facilities, upgrade our ability to mobilize rescue staff and promote people’s safety awareness in the future.”

lili@bjreview.com