\n<\/p>\n
A Beijing city official has issued a rare public acknowledgment of official failings in the authorities\u2019 response to the severe flooding that hit China\u2019s capital this week.<\/p>\n
Yu Weiguo, a Communist party secretary for Miyun, the northern district worst affected by this week\u2019s extreme weather, said in a press conference on Thursday that there were \u201cgaps\u201d in the city\u2019s readiness for the deadly floods.<\/p>\n
More than 40 people are confirmed to have died in the flooding that hit Miyun and Yanqing, another Beijing district, on Sunday and Monday. Nine are still missing, including four municipal government workers.<\/p>\n
A year\u2019s worth of rain fell within seven days, turning cars upside down and flooding homes. More than 80,000 people have been relocated and more than 100 villages lost power. In total, more than 300,000 people have been affected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were gaps in our preparatory plans. Our knowledge of extreme weather was lacking. This tragic lesson has warned us that putting the people first, putting human life first, is more than a slogan,\u201d Yu said, according to Agence France-Presse.<\/p>\n
Of the 44 confirmed fatalities, 31 happened at an elderly care home in Taishitun, a town in Miyun. A report published by Caixin, a Beijing-based business magazine, said the water in the nursing home was still knee-deep when journalists visited on Tuesday. The care home, where many residents had limited mobility, is near the banks of the Qingshui River, which overflowed during the deluge.<\/p>\n
Yu expressed \u201cdeep mourning\u201d for the deaths.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Soldiers carry relief supplies for villagers trapped after a road was damaged in the floods in Miyun.<\/span> Photograph: Ju Huanzong\/AP<\/p>\n His comments are a rare admission of weaknesses in the authorities\u2019 preparedness for extreme weather events, which are becoming more common. Beijing authorities said there was 67% more rainfall this year than in previous years.<\/p>\n City officials said their disaster prevention plans had been imperfect and there were \u201cshortcomings\u201d in the infrastructure needed in the mountainous outlying districts of Beijing.<\/p>\n Many flood victims interviewed by the Guardian said they did not receive advance warnings about the extreme weather.<\/p>\n \u201cThe government was caught off-guard, they didn\u2019t know in advance either,\u201d said Li Qingfa, a 75-year-old Miyun resident. \u201cWe didn\u2019t really receive any specific warning. We didn\u2019t receive any training in confronting the disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n On Monday, before the scale of the destruction was apparent, Xi Jinping, China\u2019s leader, said government departments should \u201cmake every effort to protect people\u2019s lives and property\u201d.<\/p>\n Additional research by Jason Tzu Kuan Lu and Lillian Yang<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Beijing city official has issued a rare public acknowledgment of official failings in the authorities\u2019 response to the severe flooding that hit China\u2019s capital this week. Yu Weiguo, a Communist party secretary for Miyun, the northern district worst affected by this week\u2019s extreme weather, said in a press conference on Thursday that there were<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[6928,6929,2153,4261,151,1894,2968,5323,485],"class_list":{"0":"post-13240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-admission","9":"tag-beijing","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-chinese","12":"tag-deadly","13":"tag-failings","14":"tag-floods","15":"tag-official","16":"tag-rare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}