Thousands of people were forced to evacuate after storms dumped nearly a year’s worth of rainfall in a single day on an industrial city near Beijing.
Torrential rains forced at least 19,453 people from 6,171 households in Baoding, about 150km from the capital in China’s northern province of Hebei, to leave their homes after streets began to flood this week.
As much as 447mm rain fell in Yi, in western Baoding, in the 24 hours to early Friday morning, and records were reset at a number of weather stations in Hebei province. Official records show annual rainfall in Baoding averages just over 500mm.
The China Meteorological Administration shared a short video clip on social media showing two policemen in neon rain jackets standing boot-deep on a waterlogged street as the rain poured down at night.
The forecaster compared the amount of precipitation to the exceptional rainfall brought by a powerful typhoon in 2023 which inundated the capital Beijing. Such a spell of rainfall had been unseen since records began 140 years ago.
Baoding's Zhuozhou area, which suffered devastating floods following that extreme spell of rainfall two years ago, saw access to several bridges and roads cut off after the storms had dumped more than 190 mm of rain by Friday morning.
The national weather department had forecast heavy rainfall for northern China from Thursday through Saturday, with Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei, Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces expected to be heavily affected.
Over the past 30 days, Gansu, Shaanxi and Hebei provinces have received rainfall one to two times higher than in the same period last year, according to a website affiliated with the weather department. Some areas had reported rainfall up to four times the usual levels.
Northern China has witnessed record-breaking rainfall in recent years, exposing densely populated cities including Beijing to flood risks. Some scientists link the higher rainfall in China's usually arid north to global warming.
Hebei province recorded 640mm of rainfall last year, 26.6 per cent more than the decadal average, according to the weather department’s climate bulletin.
Earlier this week, two people died and 10 went missing after half a year's worth of rain fell in just five hours in the eastern province of Shandong.
Extreme weather has caused at least 307 deaths or disappearances across the country in the first half of 2025 and resulted in economic losses exceeding $7.6bn, Reuters reported.
