DEADLY RAINFALL IN CHINA

WITH MORE THAN 150 DEAD AND MISSING

Rainfall of unprecedented intensity

Typhoon Doksuri, downgraded to a storm, swept through China after hitting neighboring Philippines. The Beijing Meteorological Service announced on Wednesday that the rains hitting the Chinese capital in recent days had been the heaviest since records began 140 years ago.

Since last Saturday, the Chinese capital Beijing has been hit by torrential rains. In just 40 hours, the city has seen the equivalent of a whole month of July of rainfall, the first in 140 years, according to the Chinese meteorological services.

"The maximum value" recorded at one of the capital's measuring stations was an impressive 744.8 millimeters of precipitation, setting a new record for the "heaviest rainfall in 140 years", as pointed out with certainty the municipal weather service. Traces of the last torrential rain that marked people's minds dated back to 1891, while the first official rainfall records were initiated in 1883.

After the rain, the balance sheet.

The Chinese authorities announced this Friday the heavy toll with an appalling tally of 147 people killed or missing across the country, affected by these historic rains in the Beijing region.

"147 people were killed or disappeared due to disasters," said the Ministry of Emergency Management, which also mentions "703,000 people relocated in emergency" with more than 2,300 homes destroyed and economic losses estimated at 2.2 billions of dollars.

Entire areas of northern China were still immersed in early August under brownish waters carrying tons of waste in the wake of storm Doksuri.