At least 31 elderly residents of a nursing home in Beijing’s Miyun District perished this week as devastating floods swept through the Chinese capital, local officials confirmed. The disaster, part of a wave of extreme weather battering China this summer, has exposed critical flaws in emergency planning.
The flooding struck a care facility in Taishitun Town, where approximately 77 elderly residents, many severely disabled or reliant on minimal living allowances, were trapped as water levels rose to nearly 2 meters (6 feet). Emergency teams were seen wading through chest-high water in a desperate bid to rescue those inside, but many immobile residents could not be saved. Chinese media reported that around 40 people were trapped when the floods hit.
Local authorities admitted to significant oversights, noting that the nursing home’s location was previously deemed safe and excluded from evacuation plans. “This reveals loopholes in our emergency planning,” an official said at a Thursday press conference. “Our understanding of extreme weather has been insufficient, and this painful lesson has served as a wake-up call.”
The Beijing floods have claimed 44 lives in total, with the nursing home tragedy marking the deadliest single incident. Across the region, extreme rainfall also killed 16 people in neighboring Hebei province, with eight deaths reported in the city of Chengde, where 18 others remain missing.
China has faced relentless extreme weather this summer, with record heatwaves scorching eastern regions and floods ravaging the southwest. Earlier this month, Typhoon Wipha killed two people and left 10 missing in Shandong province, while a landslide in Ya’an city claimed three lives. Beijing itself is no stranger to flooding, with a 2012 deluge that dumped 190mm of rain in a single day killing 79 people.
Experts attribute the increasing frequency and severity of such events to climate change, which poses a growing threat to China’s population and its trillion-dollar agriculture sector. The country’s emergency management ministry reported that natural disasters, predominantly floods, caused 54.11 billion yuan ($7.5 billion; £5.7 billion) in economic losses in the first half of 2025 alone.
As rescue efforts continue and communities brace for further extreme weather, the Beijing tragedy underscores the urgent need for improved disaster preparedness across China.
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