Deadly floods sweep through Beijing

Heavy rains battered northern China yesterday, killing at least two people in Beijing while washing away cars and inundating subway stations, with the capital issuing its highest alerts for flooding and landslides.

Storm Doksuri has swept northwards over China since Friday, when it hit southern Fujian province after scything through the Philippines.

Emergency personnel recovered two bodies from waterways in Beijing's Mentougou district yesterday, the state-run People's Daily said.

Tree branches and dented cars, left by receding floodwaters, were seen strewn on riverbanks in Mentougou.

Elsewhere in the district, the much larger and still swollen Yongding River churned up debris in brown torrents.

A section of road surface in the outer Fangshan district caved in under rising water, local media reported.

Hundreds of bus services in the capital were suspended, according to state news agency Xinhua, while the city government issued the highest flood warning for the suburban Dashihe River.

Web users uploaded clips of the muddy torrents on social media.

One clip shows rainwater leaking onto a subway platform in western Beijing's university district, while another shows murky waters swamping a large intersection in the outer Mentougou district next to high-rise apartment blocks.

The governments of Beijing and neighboring Hebei province renewed red alerts for rainstorms yesterday.

Experts have warned that the ongoing downpour could prompt even worse flooding than in July 2012, when 79 people died and tens of thousands were evacuated.