30 killed while China sees the summer of extreme weather conditions

At least 30 people died in Beijing and more than 80,000 were evacuated in terms of security, the Chinese authorities said, while heavy rains and flood the roads and houses of the ravages in northern China.

Eight other people died after a landslide Monday in the city of Chengde, about three hours northeast of Beijing.

China faces an extreme summer. Record heat waves hit the country’s eastern region earlier this month while floods swept the southwest of the country.

In the context of the massive floods in northern China, President Xi Jinping called for “all disembarking” rescue efforts and told the authorities to prepare for “the worst and extreme scenarios”.

“No effort should be spared to search and save disappeared or trapped people, to transfer and reinstall residents to affected areas and to reduce victims to the greatest,,” the president said on Monday.

Chinese authorities have allocated 200 million yuan ($ 28 million; 21 million pounds sterling) for recovery efforts, including transport and other infrastructure.

The periphery of Beijing, including the suburban districts of Miyun and Huairou, was the hardest hit by the torrential rain.

The floods damaged dozens of roads and disrupted power to more than 130 villages. Videos show that rescuers waded in deep flood waters to reach blocked residents, as well as helicopters and drones carrying food and other aids to the disaster area.

Ms. Yang, who works in the province of Hebei, told BBC Chinese that she was very worried about her family, who lives in the district of Miyun – one of the hardest areas affected by floods.

Since Sunday, she had not been able to contact her parents and grandfather, who all suffer from health problems and have limited mobility. His family had also taken care of his pets: eight cats and three dogs.

Their village is small and distant, with around 10 households, she said, adding that she was afraid that the rescuers will completely miss him. By despair, she went to social networks to appeal for rescue, hoping that they would soon be found.

The residents of the areas struck by the floods recalled how fast the disaster took place.

“The deluge came to rush, like that, so quickly and suddenly,” a store-owner of Zhuang Zhelin, an owner of the city of Taishitun, near Beijing, told the Associated Press. “In no time, the place was filling up.”

The neighbor of Zhuang told the Associated Press that when the floods came, he “has just run upstairs and waited for the rescue”.

“I remember thinking, if no one came to pick us up, we would have real difficulty,” he said.

Beijing is no stranger to floods, especially at this time of year. One of the deadliest of recent memory occurred in July 2012, when 190 mm of rain dipped the city in one day, killing 79 people.

This summer, the floods have wreaked havoc on the expanses of China.

Two people were killed and 10 people disappeared in Shandong province earlier this month when the Wipha typhoon struck eastern China. Two weeks earlier, a landslide killed three people in Ya’an City, in the southwest of China.

Extreme weather conditions, which experts are linked to climate change, have increasingly threatened residents and the China economy – in particular its agricultural sector of billions of dollars.

Natural disasters in the first half cost China 54.11 billion yuan ($ 7.5 billion; 5.7 billion pounds sterling), said its emergency management ministry earlier this month. The floods represented more than 90% of the losses, noted the ministry.