Beijing ordered transport and construction activities along its rivers and lakes to halt as authorities in the Chinese capital braced for record rains after Typhoon Doksuri whiplashed the country’s coastal areas.
(Bloomberg) — Beijing ordered transport and construction activities along its rivers and lakes to halt as authorities in the Chinese capital braced for record rains after Typhoon Doksuri whiplashed the country’s coastal areas.
Heavy rainfall is expected in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Shandong in the north, Henan in central China and Liaoning in the northeast from Saturday night till Tuesday, the Ministry of Emergency Management said in a statement. Beijing’s southern areas and some parts of Hebei are likely to be hit by “exceptionally heavy rainfalls,” it warned, citing the “residual circulation” impact of Doksuri.
Popular tourist spots in Beijing, including the Summer Palace and the National Botanical Garden, also announced temporary closures.
“The flood control situation is grim,” the ministry said. Authorities raised the emergency response to the second level of their four-tier system for six provincial regions including Beijing, it said. Four additional teams of inspectors will be sent to key areas and infrastructure facilities to supervise flood control work, it added.
Authorities in the capital ordered the suspension of all construction work involving rivers, and the evacuation of workers, the official Beijing Daily reported. All ships in the city’s waterways must halt operations by Sunday, it said.
This round of rainfall could be in “extreme amounts and could possibly break the historical record,” Beijing News reported Saturday, citing the chief forecaster of Beijing Meteorological Observatory.
The amount of rain per day that some of Beijing’s southwestern areas will receive may exceed 600 millimeters, the newspaper quoted another official at the observatory as saying. That would be far above the government’s classification of 250 millimeters for “exceptionally heavy rainfall.”
The storm is set to test the city’s drainage system. In July 2012, Beijing’s heaviest rains in six decades left 79 people dead.
Doksuri made landfall in southeastern Chinese province of Fujian Friday after killing at least 12 people in the Philippines and Taiwan, bringing torrential rains and gales and forcing local authorities to close schools, suspend public transport and evacuate more than 120,000 people.
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