![]() In villages, residents said they had escaped to higher ground or clambered onto rooftops as the waters rose. But one man, pointing to a taxi rooflight that was all that could be seen of his vehicle, said he and others had fled the road as waters rose on Saturday night he had heard of only six who were missing. At least three stretches of an expressway were clogged with cars still submerged in water and mud in Zhaoxindian, three dozen vehicles could be seen and more were thought to be entirely covered.Īs night fell, hundreds of soldiers armed with shovels were adding their labour to that of the water pumps. The devastation in some areas suggests that the final death toll could grow. ![]() People grabbed me but they could only grab my head and the water almost washed me away. The water had been just above ankle deep when she reached her car and grabbed the door handle. He and others said a 10-year-old boy had also been drowned as the waters surged to a depth of two metres.Ī young neighbour showed the grazes covering her arms and legs as she recounted her escape. He's father had told him of a great disaster in 1939, he said but he had never seen floods approaching the scale of these in his 51 years in the village. "She was looking up, saying 'Help!' But in a few seconds she was swept past." "You could hear people shouting out but we couldn't do anything because the current was so fast." The first one, he said, contained a young woman. "I saw an empty car sweep by – then five with people inside," said He Ping in Louzishui. While deep floods claimed lives even in the centre of Beijing, the rural Fangshan district bore the brunt of the disaster, with 18.4in (46.7cm) of rain falling overnight. Officials said 25 drowned in the city, six were killed in house collapses, one was hit by lightning and five were electrocuted by toppled power lines.įifteen more were killed and 19 are missing in neighbouring Hebei province, according to the state news agency Xinhua, and at least 24 have died in storms elsewhere across the country. A few feet away, five cars lay crushed, half-filled with mud, windscreens smashed and doors twisted by the force of the torrent that swept through the village on Beijing's south-western outskirts on Saturday night.Īt least 37 died in the capital when the heaviest rains for over six decades inundated it, causing 10bn yuan (£1bn) of damage. The effects of climate change are threatening to change the nature of sporting events."My husband was washed away while he was driving," said one middle-aged woman. Meanwhile, this year’s Olympics in Tokyo, just two days away, are set to be the hottest on record, prompting organizers to put mitigating measures in place for athletes facing competing in heat of around 86 degrees Fahrenheit. ![]() As of Wednesday, the fire has burned some 364,000 acres, erased scores of buildings and evacuated thousands of residents–and it is just one of dozens of wildfires that have burned across the western U.S. Oregon’s Bootleg wildfire, the nation’s largest active blaze, is so intense that it “is predicting what the weather will do,” the state’s forestry department told the New York Times this week. in recent weeks, with heavy rain from Tropical Storm Elsa triggering flooding on the East Coast and images of parts of New York CIty’s subway system deluged. ![]() TangentĮxtreme weather events have also hit parts of the U.S. Weather watchers have warned that climate change could make these events a more common occurrence. Many more people remain missing after Germany and Belgium were hit with unprecedented flash floods and tens of thousands of residents were left without power. The scenes seen in China overnight mirror deadly floods across western Europe last week, where the death toll is nearing 200. ![]() But in recent years, experts say, the risk of flooding has been exacerbated in cities and urban areas. Several outlets have noted that heavy rainfall is not uncommon during China’s wettest season, between March and September. ![]()
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