Pictures

Torrential Rains Flood Beijing, Subways, and Forbidden City

by on Friday, June 24, 2011 49 comments comments

Two Chinese men and a half-submerged Honda Accord in flooded Beijing.

From ChinaNews:

Beijing suffers largest torrential rainstorm so far this year

June 23rd afternoon around 4pm, Beijing received the heaviest torrential rains this year so far as the daytime sky turned black as night. Beijing city’s meteorological observatory issued a torrential rainstorm blue warning signal.

From Xinhua:

Attitudes in the rain, Beijing suffers heavy rainfall

June 23rd afternoon, a heavy thunderstorm suddenly occurred in Beijing, pedestrians wading through water in the rain. That afternoon, Beijing suffered heavy thunderstorm weather. Throughout this rainfall, major parts of Beijing city were under heavy rains, with local precipitation reaching torrential rainstorm levels. Due to surface flooding in many sections, some city streets were essentially broken.

Two topless Beijing residents riding in torrential rains.

A man in a red raincoat rides a bicycle in Beijing foodwaters.

Several male Chinese in Beijing attempt to open a sewer manhole cover.

A red BMW 3-series and bicycle half submerged in Beijing flood.

Several Chinese schoolgirls with their bikes in Beijing flood waters.

A Chinese and foreigner walking through heavy Beijing rain and flooding.

Two Chinese individuals standing on a road divider, the road having been flooded on both sides.

Dozens of Chinese commuters under umbrellas waiting for buses alongside a flooded underpass.

The roof of a submerged car is barely visible as a traffic jam of cars are stopped by a flooded underpass.

Rainwater cascades down the steps of a Beijing subway station as the city floods from torrential rains.

Rainwater cascades down the steps of a Beijing subway station as the city floods from torrential rains.

Beijing bus commuters wait for buses while a black Volkswagen Santana is abandoned in deep flood waters.

Beijing Forbidden City flooded.

From Youku:

Beijing heavy rains form waterfall behind office building

The above video accumulated 1.2 million views within 16 hours and shows a spectacular waterfall of flooded rainwater draining into the empty foundation of a construction site, captured by a netizen from his office building.

From Youku:

Beijing torrential rains flood road, illegal cab carrying passengers flips over

The above video has been viewed over 600k times in 14 hours and shows several Beijing public buses driving through deep flood waters, with one three-wheeled pedicab overturning in the wake of a passing bus.

A collection of Beijing rainstorm and flooding photographs taken by Chinese media and netizens: (click to enlarge)

UPDATE 2011 June 25: Here are some additional videos that were released in the past 24 hours…

The video above seems to be produced or edited by Youku itself and features many different videos of the June 23 Beijing rainstorm and flooding. It has reached 1.9 million views in one day.

This video titled “Beijing Rainstorm, Shijingshan Road flooded up to the roof of cars” has accumulated over 2 million views in one day.

Another amongst Youku’s most watched videos today is the above short video of a Beijing Subway station along Line 4. The title of the video was “Line 4 Taoranting becomes Venice“. It currently has 700k views after 1 day and seems to be spreading a lot on Chinese social network RenRen. There have been reports and pictures of water leaking through the roofs of Beijing subway train cars.

  • rollin wit 9′s

    fck yo couch ni66a,
    too bad for those people, natural disasters suck

  • ##BlothaLonely##

    I was stuck in the rain.. enjoy u r sofa, bitch!!

    • rollin wit 9′s

      it’s all wet anyway, doubt anyone wants to sit on it.
      I just ruined a nice pair of dockers!!

      • tengu

        No such thing as a “nice pair of Dockers!”

        C’mon someone had to say it!

  • Justin

    It’s true what they say: when it rains it pours. The irony is that I removed the fenders from my bike a week ago because they were pretty busted and rubbing the wheel. I figured their only use was for aesthetics (seeing as how they were all junked out and rusted, they weren’t that aesthetically pleasing) and to keep water from splashing up on me, but I thought, “Hey it never rains in Beijing any damn way.” Should have knocked on wood.

    • http://mysticalmagicpages.blogspot.com/ Tommy

      That would only be irony if you removed your fenders because you thought having no fenders would help you when it rained, but the opposite was true and having no fenders made it worse when it rained.

      Like taking steroids so you can win a boxing match, but dying from an arm infection from injecting steroids is ironic.

      • http://candosino.wordpress.com terroir

        o i c
        So your own comment would be considered ironic if your intention was to get everyone to like you by explaining what irony really is, but instead you incurred the wrath and disdain of everyone for being one of the few language snobs that actually understand what irony is and so made everyone hate you?

        …aw, you’re alright! Anyways, Alanis Morissette already ruined everyone with her “Ironic” explanation, and her “You Oughta Know” nudge nudge..

        • http://mysticalmagicpages.blogspot.com/ Tommy

          Yes, if my intention was to get people to like me, and my intention wasn’t to explain irony.

          If my explanation of irony simply made everyone more confused, that would be ironic.

          • http://unblockfacebookinchina.info/vpn-in-china Rod

            Well played Tommy.

            Respect.

      • Kong

        It is ironic that your example of irony no more matches the definition you gave than does Justin’s.

        You might as well look up the definition of the different varieties of “irony” just to be safe.

        In Justin’s example, he removed the fenders on his bike, explicitly reasoning that “it never rains in Beijing”. The reality is that it not only rained in Beijing a week later, but flooded. This is a perfect example of the unexpected, the contrasting, and the ironic.

        In your example, there is no connection of reasoning between winning a boxing match and not dying. Your example is closer to “coincidence” than “irony”, but as an unexpected event, it still qualified as a kind of lesser “situational irony”.

        • http://mysticalmagicpages.blogspot.com/ Tommy

          Well the opposite of steroids improving your health and making you a better fighter is steroids killing you. You inject steroids expecting result 1, but you get the opposite result, result 2.

          You buy new tires so your car can go faster, but the tires actually make your car slower. Etc.

          Thinking that it won’t rain, and then suddenly it does rain. There is no action with a unexpected result. Removing the fenders didn’t make it rain.

          • Kong

            Nono, you’re still equating multiple things with one. Being a better fighter has little to nothing to do with health. Steroids are not taken for supposed “health benefits”. Being a fighter and taking steroids also has little to do with not dying.

            Steroids making you a worse fighter would be ironic; steroids killing you is not.

            The resultant action is that he got water splashed up all over himself. He reasoned that fenders were unnecessary because it never rains, when two weeks later, it flooded and the fenders were very necessary.

          • http://mysticalmagicpages.blogspot.com/ Tommy

            I guess I’m placing death and winning at a sport at opposite ends of the spectrum. I don’t see how being a better fighter (or athlete) has nothing to do with health.

          • Kong

            Nono, I get WHAT you’re saying; I simply do not understand its relationship to a demonstrable reality. By which I mean:

            -Fighting-sport champions do not necessarily live longer (or happier, in less pain, etc.) than someone who casually plays tennis.

            -Along the same lines, many people get seriously injured or even die despite being physically fit, and despite winning competitions.

            -Steroids do not make you healthier. They destroy your health in order to give a superficial boost to certain physical limitations, allowing one to be better at a competition.

            I’m not sure how you are attempting to define “health”, but you would be hard-pressed to find a definition around those lines. Being good at a sport and dying are not opposites.

          • Ray

            I guess the proper irony would be like this:

            He took the steroids to win the boxing match but then he got an arm infection causing him to lose the boxing match by default because he could not attend.

            If you missed out the part of “instead of winning, he lost” then the irony would be hidden.

  • diverdude

    didn’t I tell u No Rain Dancing in the house !!

  • Capt. WED

    looks like fun.

  • http://candosino.wordpress.com terroir

    Milli Vanilli won a Grammy for saying so, and saying it so well:
    “Blame it on the Rain”

  • http://www.qq.com/1325279774 Kedafu

    Song of the Article

    Rain
    -The Cult

    • Just John

      Song of the article:
      Flood
      - Jars of Clay

      • Just John

        Rain, rain on my face
        It hasn’t stopped raining for days
        My world is a flood
        Slowly I become one with the mud

        Chorus:

        But if I can’t swim after forty days
        And my mind is crushed by the thrashing waves
        Lift me up so high that I cannot fall
        Lift me up
        Lift me up – when I’m falling
        Lift me up – I’m weak and I’m dying
        Lift me up – I need you to hold me
        Lift me up – Keep me from drowning again

        Downpour on my soul
        Splashing in the ocean, I’m losing control
        Dark sky all around
        I can’t feel my feet touching the ground

        [Chorus]

        Calm the storms that drench my eyes
        Dry the streams still flowing
        Cast down all the waves of sin
        And guilt that overthrow me

        [Chorus]

        Lift me up – when I’m falling
        Lift me up – I’m weak and I’m dying
        Lift me up – I need you to hold me
        Lift me up – Keep me from drowning again

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfAhpX_wIBk

  • Appalled@everything

    Fuck that’s a lot of water!

  • eddie9684

    lol i was stuck in the xitucheng station, but i didnt think it was that bad i didnt see those kind of floods anywhere..

  • 山炮 ShanPao

    This is not a natural disaster, its called poor city planning. A completely foreseeable and preventable series of events… bit of an embarrassment really!

    • Li RuiKe

      That’s the truth. Why hasn’t anyone here ever figured out that water, too, is affected by gravity? My evidence is gathered from living in apartments in which every bathroom (and balcony) was fitted with drains above the normal level of the floor, as if builders here expect water to run uphill. It’s the same on so many streets: if the puddles grow large enough, they might find a sewage drain.

    • http://candosino.wordpress.com terroir

      I think you’re totally missing the point. If proper drainage and sewage infrastructure were established, then you’d have to fix everything else like pipes lined with lead, urban sprawl, and gridlock. If there’s no flood in BJ town, how can we all pat ourselves on the back for being so brave and handling it so well?

      It’s just like SimCity; if Godzilla or some other act of God isn’t walking through downtown every half and hour and wrecking the place, it gets really boring. Self-sustaining immaculately run metropolis? Pffft. My satisfaction comes from accolades given to me by the way I handle UFO attacks!

      • 山炮 ShanPao

        thats pretty boring…..

      • http://www.lovelovechina.com Crystal

        In SimCity – if you don’t manage it well – there can erupt riots ;-)

        • donscarletti

          Yes, well, that happens here too, but if we start discussing them here this site will be blocked again as it seemed to be earlier today.

    • McCurry

      The Subway doubles as a sewage drain, don’t you know?

  • chengdude

    How much of a problem is people dumping waste/slop/detritus/used (fill in your selection of icky stuff) into the streets and storm drains in BJ? I shudder at the vile muck that would be regurgitated across the city if it ever rained like that where I live.

    • Alikese

      If it ever happens you should buy a gondola and give people rides around the city in the raw sewage. It would be like a poop-Venice.

  • Skepticist

    first lonely hearts adds with 有房有船 have already been spotted.

  • RichinBeijing

    I was paying so much attention to the manic chaos that I didn’t notice the thief prizing my phone from my pocket. Thank you rain. Thank you thief.

  • Jay K.

    tht photo of the bridge with the train and underneath being a road full of water..shit thats across my home. i remembered coming home from the office and it was still like this. 3 cars were found under water when the water subsided the next day. and some guy in the beijing south station was bossing around with his land rover and fuckin engine died and a shitty excuse for an off road vehicle was stuck, i laughed my ass off when i jeep over took it and kept moving…if iw as he jeepd river i wouldve rolled the window and said, next time buy an SUV that’s not just about face that actually does the job done.

  • david

    as ive stated a long time ago. beijing isn’t designed with the proper drainage system.

  • KfU

    Then Hu Jintao saw that the wickedness of CPC was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

    Hu Jintao was sorry that He had made the CPC on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

    Hu Jintao said, “I will blot out the CPC whom I have created from the face of the land, from Li Keqiang to Wu Bangguo to creeping things like Yu Zhengsheng; for I am sorry that I have made them.”

    But Xi Jinping found favor in the eyes of Hu Jintao.

    These are the records of the generations of Xi Jinping, son of Xi Zhongxun. Xi Jinping was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Xi Jinping walked with Hu Jintao….

  • Foreign Devil

    I wonder if the CPC offices around Tian’an’men got flooded? It’s the only way the officials will decide to do something about the city’s drainage mess. This rain is probably good for Beijing which has been in a drought for awhile now.

  • greg

    The rain was pretty intense, but at least it got rid of that god awful smog that’s been hanging around for the past 2 weeks.

  • Spanky

    No wet t-shirt contest. I am disappointed.

  • Kyle

    May their recovery be a speedy one.

  • http://www.lovelovechina.com Crystal

    And this is why bicycles are better than cars… at least in China :-)

  • Anon

    Replace “CPC” with “GOP” or “Demonrat” and your post should read right.

  • Anon

    SOLUTION TO FLOODING ANYWHERE

    1) Identify current most flood prone areas.
    2) Determine maximum record rainfall to determine size of pump needed and collection reservoir needed.
    3) Install a pump of sufficient capacity that will be switched on (perhaps by sensor?) DURING flood worthy rainfall.
    4) Pump has a pipe to a dedicated collection reservoir/area (which can be in the centre of the city itself) large enough to contain up to a number of days (or weeks?) of rainfall.
    5) Collected water can be used for watering plants later or sent off in tanks to chronically dry areas.

    The above with government manpower, backing and government equipment should cost no more than 10 million Yuan tops. Hell even civilian volunteers could do it themselves. There is no reason why any city should flood at all – including Beijing.

    • Kong

      Duh. Any city with a flooding problem should just find a proper wizard to magic the bad stuffs away!

  • Carl Hungus

    Last hour of work before the summer holidays and I looked out of the window in Changping and saw the fucking sky go dark.

    I had to come home through this shit.

    When I left Guoyuan subway I saw the three-wheeler taxis and thought; ‘no- still too dangerous; I’m taking the bus.’

    Those things are a joke- they banned them in Nanjing years ago.

  • Joe

    Knowing Beijing, if you step in that water, you will never be clean again.

  • bunny99

    In one photo the water can be seen pouring down the escalator steps into the subway – on the escalator we see a mother leading her child DOWN into the subway.

    Is mommy hoping that her daughter will become a gold medal Olympic swimmer for China some day?

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