BEIJING Relentless rain stretched into a fourth day in Beijing and nearby cities on Tuesday as a weakening typhoon brought non-stop precipitation and widespread flooding to northern China, so far claiming 11 lives.
Rivers have swollen to dangerous levels, prompting Beijing to use a flood storage reservoir for the first time since it was built 25 years ago. As of Monday night, China's capital city had sealed off over 100 mountain roads and evacuated more than 52,000 people from their homes.
The death toll rose to 11 on Tuesday morning, with another 27 missing, Beijing Daily reported. Two of the victims died during rescue and relief operations, the newspaper said.
Doksuri, one of the strongest storms to hit China in years, weakened as it rolled inland, but authorities warned that risks of further floods and other geological disasters remained.
Localised thunderstorms and strong winds were forecast for Beijing on Tuesday, as well as for neighbouring city Tianjin and Hebei province, state broadcaster CCTV said.
As rain continues to pour down, water and power outages and difficulties in getting food supplies have disrupted lives, according to local media reports and social media posts.
Beijing's Fangshan district said it will deploy helicopters to drop off food, drinking water and emergency supplies to villages in mountainous areas that have been cut off.
Food delivery giant Meituan has added staff and extended delivery times as orders for vegetables, meat and eggs rose 50% and overall shopping on its app increased 20%, media reported.
Several subway lines in the capital, including trains in western suburbs, were suspended on Tuesday. Beijing's Mentougou district in the west saw dramatic damage a day before, after torrential rains turned roads into rivers, sweeping cars away.
Nearly 400 flights were cancelled on Tuesday and hundreds delayed at Beijing's two airports, tracker app Flight Master showed.
Beijing recorded an average of 260mm (10.2 inches) of rainfall from Saturday to early Monday, with the Changping Wangjiayuan Reservoir logging the largest reading at 738.3mm (29 inches).
The city government said the rainfall over the past few days has broken records from a severe storm 11 years ago. In July 2012, Beijing was hit by what was then the strongest storm since the founding of modern China, with the city receiving 190.3mm of rain in one day, affecting more than 1.6 million people.
South of Beijing, in Hebei province, precipitation from Saturday to Monday at one local weather station totalled more than the amount normally seen over half a year, with rainfall amounting to 1,003mm (3.3 feet) for the three-day period. Precipitation in the county where the station is located averages 605mm a year.
Hebei authorities have opened flood storage and diversion areas to manage flooding risks in the Hai river basin, where five rivers converge in a region nearly the size of Britain.
In Wenan county, where the largest capacity flood storage area for the river basin is located, more than 16,000 residents were relocated from around Zhaowangxin river over the weekend.
Doksuri swept through coastal Fujian last week, taking a 14.76 billion yuan ($2.06 billion) direct economic toll on the southeastern province and affecting almost 2.7 million people, with close to 562,000 evacuated from homes and more than 18,000 houses destroyed, state media reported.
As Doksuri fades, Typhoon Khanun was forecast to enter the East China sea on Wednesday morning, possibly affecting China's densely populated Zhejiang province and inflicting further damage to corn and other crops already hit by Doksuri.
($1 = 7.1669 yuan)
(Reporting by Liz Lee, Ryan Woo, Beijing and Shanghai newsroom; Editing by Tom Hogue)