Unprecedented rainfall and subsequent flooding in northern China over the past week have claimed at least 60 lives, with Beijing recording the highest number of casualties. According to Beijing’s deputy mayor, Xia Linmao, 44 people were confirmed dead in the capital and nine remain missing. A large share of the victims were residents of a nursing home in the mountainous Miyun district, where 31 elderly people lost their lives during the floods.
The mountainous area received up to 573.5 millimeters of rainfall, a level local media described as “devastating.”
In neighboring Hebei province, 16 deaths were reported, including at least eight in Chengde on the outskirts of Beijing, where 18 others remain missing. State-run Xinhua News Agency reported that most casualties occurred in villages in Xinglong County, located just 25 kilometers from the Miyun Reservoir.
The heavy downpours also pushed the water level of the Miyun Reservoir, the largest water storage facility in northern China, to a historic high. Authorities said that at the peak of Sunday’s rainfall, as much as 6,550 cubic meters of water per second—roughly equivalent to two and a half Olympic-sized swimming pools—flowed into the dam.
Meanwhile, a landslide in a village north of the reservoir on Monday killed eight more people, with four still missing.
