Dozens Die in China Floods as Typhoon Remnants Batter North
Nearly two weeks after making landfall, Doksuri still wreaks mayhem—and another storm is coming Millions of people were displaced as record-breaking rainfall inundated Jilin province in northeastern China. The heavy rains were remnants of Typhoon Doksuri that had earlier flooded the Beijing area. Photo: Yan Linyun/Zuma Press By Selina Cheng Aug. 8, 2023 7:21 am ET HONG KONG—Dozens of people died and millions more have been displaced after the remnants of Typhoon Doksuri battered China’s northeast, dumping torrential rain and causing widespread flooding, according to local go
Millions of people were displaced as record-breaking rainfall inundated Jilin province in northeastern China. The heavy rains were remnants of Typhoon Doksuri that had earlier flooded the Beijing area. Photo: Yan Linyun/Zuma Press
HONG KONG—Dozens of people died and millions more have been displaced after the remnants of Typhoon Doksuri battered China’s northeast, dumping torrential rain and causing widespread flooding, according to local governments and state media.
The northeastern provinces of Jilin and Heilongjiang were the latest to feel the aftereffects from a storm that made landfall nearly two weeks ago in Fujian, about 2,000 miles to the south. Beijing and the nearby major port city of Tianjin, as well as surrounding regions continued to suffer the aftermath from days of heavy rainfall, even though the weather in the Chinese capital on Tuesday was partly sunny—with no rain.
Millions of people living across swaths of China still face the risk of flooding from the heavy precipitation dumped by Doksuri as it ground north. A second typhoon, Khanun, is now threatening China’s northeast after making a zigzag to briefly menace Japan. Khanun is forecast to hit the Korean Peninsula in the coming days.
China’s typically arid northeast may again expect torrential rain this weekend, after accumulating more than 100 millimeters, around 4 inches, of rainfall in some areas over five days last week, China’s meteorological service said. That is more than a fifth of the annual average for Heilongjiang province.
A man wading through a flooded farm in China’s Hebei province.
Photo: TINGSHU WANG/REUTERS
Rising waters have been putting a strain on embankments and flood basins of the Songhua and Nen rivers in the northeast, the Ministry of Emergency Management said in a statement Monday. The arrival of Khanun is expected to make rescue efforts more difficult, it said.
The central government has yet to release nationwide figures for the total number of people who have died, gone missing or have been displaced, 10 days after hundreds of counties and towns were submerged by the floods.
In Jilin, 14 people died, including three local officials, authorities said on social media Sunday. Another official was missing. Around 100,000 people from one town were affected by the floods. Four reservoirs in the area continued discharging to maintain safe water levels, the local government said in a social-media post.
Heilongjiang, a major food-producing province, saw 160,000 people displaced and around 220,000 acres of agricultural land affected, the People’s Daily reported Sunday.
Areas further south and surrounding Beijing and Hebei, an industrial province southwest near Beijing, were among the earliest to face the effects of the typhoon.
Millions of people in Hebei province have been affected by the downpours.
Photo: TINGSHU WANG/REUTERS
As the recent heavy rains feed into river systems, the port-city of Tianjin is bracing for floods by Wednesday even though the weather there has cleared, state media reported earlier. Around 80,000 people have been evacuated from their homes, the city’s Bureau of Emergency Management reported Sunday.
Ten people from Hebei died and 18 were missing as of Saturday, according to state media.
Zhuozhou, in Hebei, was hit particularly hard. More than 130,000 of its 600,000 population were affected, state media reported last week.
The flooding also hit some manufacturing. Shenzhen-listed Aerospace Hi-Tech Holding Group said one of its factories in Zhuozhou’s aeronautics industrial park suspended production because its equipment was underwater.
Around 3.4 million people from over 100 counties in Hebei province were affected by the downpours, including about 1.7 million people who were displaced as of Monday, according to state media.
Debris clogged a street on the outskirts of Beijing on Monday.
Photo: Andy Wong/Associated Press
As millions struggled to cope with the floods, a Hebei official drew public criticism after saying that the province should act as Beijing’s buffer by holding water in its basins to reduce the strain on the capital.
State media reports and local government social-media releases focused on rescue and restoration efforts, giving detailed accounts of emergency supplies deployed. Reports by state-owned news agency Xinhua tallied the equipment deployed for the rescue mission in Zhuozhou, such as generators and trucks carrying drinking water.
Tens of thousands of troops from China’s People’s Liberation Army and paramilitary police were also deployed in the rescue efforts near Beijing, repairing roads and clearing riverbanks, the agency reported.
The social-media account for the government of Jilin published the number of households where electricity was restored, lamp posts that were repaired and packets of medication dropped from helicopters.
Write to Selina Cheng at [email protected]
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