Urban flooding raises questions about Chinese cities' drainage systems.
Many cities in China, even its capital Beijing, grind to a halt after heavy downpours. Flooded streets and intersections cause traffic jams and waterlogged pavements, courtyards and roadsides make movement difficult for all but the most determined pedestrians.
A sudden deluge lashed the capital on June 23. The storm flooded the city's roads, paralyzing traffic, and even disrupted the subway system during the evening rush hour.
Beijing is not the only city to have been tested by torrential rains recently.
On June 18, Wuhan in Hubei Province was hit by its heaviest rainfall in 13 years, with an average of 196 mm of precipitation falling across the provincial capital. The storm flooded several parts of the city, and rendered 82 major roads temporarily unusable.
On June 28, a sudden downpour effectively submerged Changsha in Hunan Province with rainfall of 54 mm in six hours, turning highways into rivers and halting transportation.
Torrential rains also lashed Chengdu in Sichuan Province on July 3. Many parts of the city were flooded, severely affecting traffic and grounding dozens of flights at the city's Shuangliu International Airport.
Nanchang in Jiangxi Province and Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province have also been battered by abrupt summer storms. Similar to Beijing, heavy downpours in these cities caused flooding and massive disruption.
Capital of jokes
Seven years ago, Beijing encountered a massive rainstorm on July 10, 2004, with the average rainfall in downtown areas reaching 80 mm in two hours.
Some areas in the city's west were submerged in two meters of water with traffic all but paralyzed for more than two hours.
The heavy rainstorm on June 23 again left many areas of the city waterlogged and threw normal life out of gear.
Although the Beijing Meteorological Bureau issued a rainstorm alert in the afternoon, predicting 50 mm of rain would fall within 12 hours, it went largely unheeded by most of the city's 20 million residents.
At around 4 p.m., the rain came bucketing down, flooding many parts of the capital within minutes.
The deluge dumped 51 mm of precipitation on the city in four hours. Some areas, such as Wukesong and Zizhuyuan in Haidian District, received more than 100 mm, according to the National Meteorological Center. Shijingshan District in the city's west recorded the most rainfall, a staggering 182 mm.
The rain was the heaviest for a single storm in 10 years, said Wang Yi, chief engineer of the Beijing Municipal Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.
