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In recent days, Beijing, the capital of China, has been brutally hit by the most severe rainfall in recorded history. Videos circulating on the Internet show the devastation caused by the torrential rain. Flash floods have triggered overflowing rivers, breaking dams, causing bridges and roads to collapse. The city has turned into an ocean with countless vehicles either submerged or washed away by the floodwaters. As of noon on August 2nd, according to the official statement from Beijing, there have been at least 11 fatalities and 27 people reported missing in the city. However, given the Chinese Communist Party's consistent practice of concealing the true extent of disasters, many suspect that the actual death toll may far exceed the official count. On August 1st, a netizen uploaded a video saying, “A village in Beijing is just gone!“ The video shows what appears to be a large area of the village covered by a river formed by the floodwaters. In the video, one can see distant mountains across the river, and there is a pavilion, presumably the entrance to the village, standing in the water. On a partially destroyed road, the man filming the video exclaims, “This is too serious, we can't pass anywhere, the entire village is 'gone'.“ While people's attention is focused on the floods in Beijing, some rural areas in Hebei and Tianjin, located downstream, were sacrificed as discharge zones in order to protect major cities such as Beijing, Xiong'an, and Tianjin. These areas have been experiencing continuous rainfall, so the local residents not only have to endure the natural disasters caused by heavy rainfall but also the additional calamity brought about by massive reservoir discharge from the upstream areas. There are even reports of reservoirs discharging floodwater at night without prior notification to the local residents, resulting in people getting trapped due to the flooding. Those unfortunate villages chosen as reservoir discharge areas have been completely submerged, and the villagers have been forced to evacuate. #Chinadam #waterdischarge #flood #beijing #chinaobserver All rights reserved.
