What if we told you that the streets of Beijing have turned into rivers, claiming lives and uprooting families in a matter of hours? This week, the Chinese capital faced an unprecedented deluge that has left at least 30 people dead and forced over 90,000 residents to flee their homes.

Beijing, along with its surrounding towns, has been drenched with record-breaking rainfall, accumulating over 16 centimeters by Monday night and with forecasts predicting an additional 30 centimeters for Tuesday. The Miyun district was hit particularly hard, where 28 of the fatalities occurred and 17,000 individuals had to be evacuated. The devastation didn’t stop there; Yanqing district reported two deaths, and another four were lost to a landslide in neighboring Hebei province, where eight people are still missing.

The sheer intensity of the rain is staggering—imagine six months’ worth of precipitation falling within a single weekend. In the nearby Jizhou district, an additional 10,000 people were evacuated, all while the city wrestled with damaged roads, downed power lines, and flooded homes. The local government has responded with a high-level emergency protocol, instructing residents to stay indoors and shutting down schools and construction sites.

The situation is dire, prompting China's Premier Li Qiang to label the flooding in Miyun as causing "serious casualties" and calling for urgent rescue operations. While the central government has allocated around 50 million yuan (approximately $10 million) for disaster relief, the aftermath of this deluge is going to take much longer to overcome.

As the storms rolled in, they not only wreaked havoc on infrastructure—knocking out power in over 130 villages—but they also brought emotional turmoil for those caught in the chaos. One resident, Zhuang Zhelin, expressed his shock at how quickly the floodwaters rose, recalling the frantic moments of trying to save his family’s business from the mud. His neighbor, Wei Zhengming, a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, shared a heart-wrenching account of waiting for rescue, all the while fearing for his safety.

The rains began last Wednesday, but the severity peaked on Monday, leading experts like Xuebin Zhang of the University of Victoria to indicate that Beijing received an extraordinary amount of rainfall—80-90% of its annual total in just a few days. This extreme weather isn’t merely a fluke; it’s a vivid reminder of how climate change is altering weather patterns and exacerbating natural disasters.

As floodwaters recede, it becomes clear that the road to recovery will be long and arduous. These floods are not just a natural disaster; they are a stark reflection of the vulnerabilities in our urban landscapes when faced with the wrath of nature.