Swathes of northern China were submerged in filthy floodwater on Wednesday after days of historic rainfall battered the capital city of Beijing and surrounding areas.
Torrents of brown water swept tonnes of rubbish through a park in suburban Beijing, while normally bustling main streets in Hebei province to the southwest of the capital turned to rivers.
Aerial photographs of Hebei’s Zhuozhou city showed inundated shopfronts and car roofs poking through the sludgy rainwater.
Farmland in the surrounding areas was left submerged stretching for miles, the photographs showed. Rescue workers in one part of Zhuozhou visited used inflatable boats to transport instant noodles, bread and drinking water to besieged residents, who were also left without power or mobile phone signal. A 34-year-old man, Liu, told a harrowing tale of being trapped since Monday inside the Zhuozhou printworks where he is employed. “First we tried to block the water, but then it was impossible,” he said. “We couldn’t get any of our plant’s equipment or materials out to shelter. We were trapped inside until midday yesterday before being rescued.”
Liu said that while they still needed to wait for the water to recede before assessing the damage inside the flooded factory, his employer’s estimated losses were nearly 20mn yuan ($2.79mn).
Zhou Libin, 41, had been serving as the head of a rescue team when the floods hit. “We were the first team to arrive in Zhuozhou,” said Zhou.
A woman holds a baby, as rescue workers evacuate residents stranded by floodwaters, following heavy rainfall in Zhuozhou, Hebei province, China, yesterday.
