AT LEAST 20 people have died and 27 are missing amid flooding in the mountains surrounding the capital Beijing, Chinese media reported today.

Days of heavy rain have prompted authorities to close train stations and evacuate people in vulnerable communities to school gyms. 

Homes have been flooded, roads torn apart and cars piled into stacks.

The level of rainfall is highly unusual for Beijing, which generally has a dry climate. 

Seasonal flooding hits large parts of China every summer, particularly in the semitropical south. But, some northern regions this year have reported the worst floods in 50 years.

In early July, at least 15 people were killed by floods in the south-western region of Chongqing, and some 5,590 people in the far north-eastern province of Liaoning had to be evacuated. In the central province of Hubei, rainstorms have trapped residents in their vehicles and homes.

China’s deadliest and most destructive floods in recent history were in 1998, when 4,150 people died, most of them along the Yangtze river.

In 2021, more than 300 people died in flooding in the central province of Henan. 

Record rainfall inundated the provincial capital of Zhengzhou on July 20 that year, turning streets into rushing rivers and flooding at least part of an underground line.