Heavy rain, storm kill 20 in China

BEIJING - The Associated Press

Rescuers and residents stand next to a stranded car pulled up from a flooded street under the Guangqumen overpass. REUTERS photo

The heaviest rain to hit Beijing in six decades killed at least 10 people and left cars and buses submerged, and 10 other storm deaths were reported elsewhere as China braced yesterday for more downpours.

Some 14,500 people were evacuated yesterday from parts of Beijing, Xinhua said. The Beijing News said they included 5,200 people who left areas in Fangshan that were vulnerable to landslides. The rain knocked down trees in Beijing and trapped cars and buses in waist-deep water in some areas. In Tongzhou district on the capital’s eastern outskirts, two people were killed by collapsed roofs, one person was fatally struck by lightning and a fourth was electrocuted by a fallen power line as he helped neighbors escape, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Elsewhere, six people were killed by rain-triggered landslides in Sichuan province in the west. Four people died in Shanxi province in the north when their truck was swept away by a rain-swollen river. At the Beijing airport, 229 domestic and 14 international flights were canceled and more were delayed, the airport authority announced.

The government warned of more storms over the following 24 hours for China’s northeast, the port city of Tianjin east of Beijing, Inner Mongolia in the north, Sichuan and neighboring Yunnan province, and Guangdong and Hainan provinces in the southeast.