Here’s an email we just received from reader Ernie French:

hey Tao, any news on this?

It hailed last year june 11th, 2013

yesterday, it hailed for a moment (at dzm, at least) during that sudden, torrential storm.

coincidence? I think not.  Are they re-using the cloud seeding schedule? Or is it that they always seed after the gaokao ends?

WE THINK NOT EITHER.

Here’s what I wrote last year, the second Tuesday of June, when this city last saw hail.

In exactly 364 days, I’ll be sure my Beijing windows are closed.

(Because the water that sliced through picked up all the dirt and debris on the mesh windows and turned my tabletop black.)

(Image by Hannah Lincoln)

Being from Hong Kong, storms no longer faze me. But hailstones the size of golf balls? That’s a different story. An upscale mall in Kowloon Tong recently had its windows smashed by hail, and certain subway stations were flooded; planes were diverted, containers at our ports were blown sideways… what a way to end a weekend of Rugby Sevens! (Which New Zealand won, by the way.)

My aunt sent me these photos:

You might be interested to know that hailstorm covering a wide area is a warning sign of upcoming economic or political instability, according to renowned fengshui consultant Mak Ling-Ling (via The Standard):

“Hong Kong has seen hail many times in history. But hailstorms in large areas, including Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong are rare,” she said. “It could be a case of people’s complaints not being heard.”

People’s complaints not being heard - maybe they’re not protesting enough.

A reminder that hail can be deadly. Stay safe out there, and watch your spending.

UPDATE, 3:05 pm: Via SCMP:

Heavy rain will continue in Guangdong, Guangxi and parts of Taiwan until at least Wednesday, China’s National Meterological Centre said on Monday. Hailstorms could still occur in southern and central parts of Guangdong, it added.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs said on Monday morning that at least 16 people were killed and two missing in the first disastrous storms to hit southern China this spring since March 28.

Also see: Hail And Serein: The Amazing Storm That Just Swept Through Beijing

Imagine being trapped in a car stuck in a culvert amid heavy rain. The water level slowly rises, starting from the knees. You call the police. One hour passes. It’s at your neck. Two hours. Your mouth. And still, no signs of rescuers…

Rains battered Shenzhen on Friday, as “47 firetrucks were put to use in 38 separate incidents as rain reached 113.8 mm,” reports The Nanfang. There were two deaths. One man was electrocuted. The other, a woman, drowned in her car, and it’s her story that’s frightfully harrowing.

At 4:40 a.m. on Friday, Tong’s husband was woken by a phone call while he was on a train back to the couple’s native Jiujiang in Jiangxi Province with their 9 year-old son. Tong told her husband, Huang Sentian, that she had already called the police because her car was trapped in a culvert and she was already up to her knees in water.

At 4:54 a.m. Huang called his wife back and she said: “The water is now almost up to my neck and I still can’t open the door. But don’t worry, I’ll come up with a solution.”

At 5:11 a.m. a school classmate of Tong called her and was told that the water had now reached her neck and that she was still waiting for emergency services.

At 5:13 a.m. Tong called her classmate back and exclaimed “How have you people not found me yet?” After realizing it wasn’t the rescuers she said “Sorry, wrong number.”

From 6:06 a.m. Tong’s phone could not be reached.

Rescuers finally found her car at 7:30 am, and removed her body 30 minutes later.

The woman’s husband is rightfully furious with the police. According to SCMP:

“The city’s poor drainage caused my wife’s death. How bad is our municipal infrastructure that a car can be submerged in just a few minutes?” Huang said.

“But it’s totally unforgivable that the policemen did little to try to save my wife. They told me they arrived there at 4.59am. But my wife was still fully conscious at the time and even made calls at 5.11am and 5.13am.”

“How could they not reach my wife? There are no acceptable excuses here,” Huang said.

Huang, picured above, said he might hire lawyers, because no official has attempted to explain to him what exactly happened.

According to a statement issued later by Nanshan district government: “Police, firemen and ambulances rushed to the scene at 4.59am after they received a report at 4.54am … But torrential water metres deep made it difficult to reach the car.”

Another car was trapped under the same underpass in 2011, SCMP continues.

The driver sat his roof until police came. Tong’s death showed that authorities did not keep their promise, the Shenzhen Evening News said.

Woman dies in Shenzhen floods after making final phone call to husband (The Nanfang)
‘How could they not reach my wife?’… (SCMP) (Images via)

According to Wikipedia, a waterspout is “an intense columnar vortex (usually appearing as a funnel-shaped cloud) that occurs over a body of water, connected to a cumuliform cloud. In the common form, it is a non-supercell tornado over water.” That’s awesome.

They usually appear in the tropics, but one was recently spotted in the northeastern Chinese province of Heilongjiang. As described by Sina:

A rare waterspout was spotted on the Songhuajiang River which runs through Daqing city in northeastern Heilongjiang Province on August 19. Hail as big as pigeon eggs then descended on the area, lasting for about ten minutes.

One more look:

Also see: waterspout rainbow on the Baltic Sea!

Rare waterspout spotted in NE China (Sina)

The thunderstorm that swept through Beijing on Sunday filled us with a collective terror that ramified into the outer ring roads. Everything that follows is true. At Capital M in Qianmen, Gady Epstein of the Economist had just begun to talk about Bo Xilai when the thunderclap sprang from the direction of Zhongnanhai. That morning at eight, a sanitation worker outside Terminal 3 of Beijing Capital International Airport was struck down by a bolt of lightning. At a midday brunch in a homey apartment near Sanlitun, an AFP journalist noted that the lightning that morning, accompanied by explosions in the sky, was the fiercest she had ever encountered. And in a subway station, which is every subway station, people stood elbow to elbow. Only the occasional brave soul broke the line and sallied forth, sprinting through the rain to the percussion of God’s composition.

Torrential rains in Sichuan province have caused flooding in several cities in recent days, leading thousands of militia and reserve troops to be dispatched to the hardest hit areas.

The rains actually began last week, with the worst of it coming down in the last few days. Exact numbers regarding loss of life and property aren’t available yet, but the rains have given us two vivid image of the destruction.

The first comes from yesterday in Jiangyou in western Sichuan, where a 40-year-old bridge collapsed into the Panjiang River.

The Qinglian Bridge is about 200 meters long and 6 meters wide, according to Global Times, and was repaired after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake.

As of noon, three people had been rescued and sent to a local hospital. They are in non-life-threatening conditions, sources said.

The exact number of people who fell into the river and the number of casualties has not yet been verified. Witnesses said a few sedans, a truck and several pedestrians had fallen into the river after the collapse.

Local fire authorities have dispatched 55 rescuers with six steamboats to search a 10-km stretch of the river downstream.

AP adds that six people remain missing.

And then there’s the above video, which is, quite simply, a house being washed away by water. You won’t get a much more vivid illustration of a flood’s power than that. One person was reportedly swept up along with the house.

Bridge collapse:

Hong Kong is a city unlike any other, its buildings rising up out of the hills like ridged obelisks, its waters rippling with cargo ships, ferries, and buoys, its mountainside painted the shade of roiling green, its alleys stacked upon one another with overpasses and skywalks crisscrossing as in an M.C. Escher illustration.

I’m in Hong Kong at the moment, and to try to capture a bit of the wonder of this place, I made the above video. Hope you enjoy.

The song is “Angel” by Massive Attack. Yes, that’s rainbow and rain, part of a storm almost as good as this one.

p.s. Apologies for sporadic postings from the end of this week until July 5. Traveling is in the plans as part of a little summer break. We could use your help, so get in touch if you’d be interested in contributing.

That was quite the collective experience, Beijing.

An hour ago, a dam in the sky broke. Rain turned into pellets of ice, the sound of its steady assault only interrupted by thunderclap that set off car alarms. One imagines Qu Yuan sitting somewhere with his feet propped up, enjoying the show.

As quickly as the storm came, it departed — but not before the sun shone out of a hole while the clouds were wrung dry. Now it is quiet, the singing of birds and rustling leaves beginning to fade amid the resumption of human activity, vehicles, construction.

The Netherlands play China in a football friendly at Workers’ Stadium at 8 pm. There’s a cooking class over at The Hutong, a circus at the Bird’s Nest, a celebration of Jacques Cousteau’s birthday at Cu Ju, and happy hours everywhere. I have a party to attend in Shuangjing, others have family dinners to share, bikes to ride, music to enjoy. Onward, everyone. The evening awaits.

It’s raining everywhere, and not the good kind, under which one might twirl around a lamppost. In Liuzhou, Guangxi, rains have caused flooding and prompted local blogger Liuzhou Laowai to exclaim, “It’s a holiday. It has to rain!” Here are more pictures of afflicted Guangxi Jiangxi towns via Xinhua.

In Dingzhou, Hebei province on June 7, a student on her way to gaokao fell into a ditch and drowned during a thunderstorm. “The current in the drainage ditch was furious after the storm unleashed 97.2 millimeters of rain in three hours, and the family was forced to hire an excavator to try and rescue the girl, to no avail,” reports Shanghaiist.

In Hunan province, at least three are dead after rains caused a landslide, while 200,000 people have been affected in Anhui province.

And right here in Beijing, right now:

https://twitter.com/niubi/status/344357297557999616

“Lovely” June thunderstorm — and painful. I just scootered through it.

Or as David Feng puts it:

https://twitter.com/DavidFeng/status/344368013778247682

All of this follows huge storms that left 55 people dead and 14 missing last month in the south. “The Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs website says at least nine provinces have had storms and some flooding and landslides since Tuesday. It says Guangdong province has been hit the hardest, with 36 deaths and 10 missing people, followed by Jiangxi province, where six people are reported dead and four more missing,” reports AP.

Rain is no fun, especially during holidays. Stock up on beer and liquor, everyone. Time to bunker up and play some Settlers of Catan.

UPDATE, 5:54 pm: It stopped raining.

(Images via Chinanews.com, Xinhua, all from Guangxi)

This happened in Tianjin recently, probably Wednesday. Questions: How did this man get the jet ski into the street? Over shallow water, does the jet ski not get damaged? Why does he have a jet ski? Is he too good for swimming? What happens when the water recedes?

How did this video get 1.12 million views in 14 hours on Youku? After the jump for those in China.

Discounting a little drizzle, projected doomsday rains missed most of Beijing proper last night, though other parts of northeast China were not so lucky. Tianjin, which I tend to think of as Beijing’s unkempt armpit about 100 kilometers to the southeast, was hit hard yesterday, and the aftermath on one unfortunate stretch of road is visible above.

There is, of course, the perfect short story for all this, and that story is Steven Millhauser’s “Rain.” It makes for lovely afternoon reading.

Youku video for those in China after the jump.

Our favorite government mouthpiece has flubbed again with the headline on its latest story (four-plus hours after its posting, it has yet to be changed). Ostensibly about a new round of rainstorms scheduled to hit this afternoon, Xinhua inadvertently draws our attention to the waves of negative reaction to the municipal government’s disaster response, a sampling of which can be found on China Digital Times (highlights include: “In the Celestial Empire, every natural disaster is a prelude to an award ceremony”).

But speaking of downfalls, earlier today, Beijing mayor Guo Jinlong and deputy mayor Ji Lin both resigned. I want to be clear though that this isn’t really a “downfall,” as these two are headed for greener pastures: earlier this month, Guo was “elected” as secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, and Ji has been appointed deputy secretary. The timing of their resignations, on the eve of a potentially devastating storm (up to 4 cm of rain in some parts) that reminds everyone of Saturday’s devastating storm, is surely a mere coincidence.

A couple other favorite comments from the CDT story:

Several events stand out from yesterday’s storm and its aftermath: The first is that the early warning system didn’t actually warn anyone early; the second, that the emergency response was slow to start; the third, that people who drove on the airport highway to pick up stranded passengers were charged tolls; the fourth, that neither the government nor public facilities opened their doors to those in need; the fifth, that drivers stuck in the middle of the road were fined for parking illegally. The only thing that functioned properly last night were the people of Beijing.

And:

In my brief existence, a once-in-a-century solar eclipse has happened twice, a once-in-five-hundred-year flood has happened ten times, and a once-in-a-millenium earthquake has happened twice. The only thing that hasn’t happened is the once-every-five-year general election. Repost if you feel me~~

We’re told that the above post was censored very quickly.

And now, here are two of the worst political mug shots you’ll ever find, via Sina. The one on the left is this city’s former mayor. Perhaps you would be so kind as to caption them, fair readers?

(H/T Stan Abrams)

Within Beijing proper on Saturday, Guangqumen Bridge on southeast Second Ring Road was among the most affected by the rain, and resulted in one of the earliest reported deaths. (Incidentally, Guangqumen is about a kilometer and a half from Shuangjing Bridge, where some foreigners were having a good time, surely unaware of the trouble that was just down the street.) In this video, you see rescuers attempt to get to a submerged car at around 10 pm. Eventually, according to the description, the car’s windows were smashed in because the doors were jammed, and a 34-year-old Jiangsu man was pulled out and taken away in an ambulance. He was confirmed dead at Beijing Hospital.

Five vehicles were submerged and three were pulled out. A rescuer surnamed Cui said that the water depth was at least three meters. Youku video for those in China after the jump.

The publicized death toll for Saturday’s Beijing rainstorm was three, then four, then 10… and now 37 — and might will rise in the coming days. According China Daily, 25 drowned during the 20-hour storm, while others died of related causes. The municipal government estimates losses of at least 10 billion yuan. More than 50,000 people have been relocated, according to Xinhua, and at least 80,000 travelers were stranded at the airport, with 500 cancelled outbound flights. All in all, “average precipitation reached 170 mm citywide and the maximum exceeded 460 mm.”

As always, Sinocism has a terrific roundup of coverage, and several of the following links comes from Bill’s post.

Fangshan District was hardest hit — we have a video after the jump. Jinggang (as in Beijing-Hong Kong) Highway in that district was completely submerged, turning into a “river,” as netizens are calling it.

The expressway was still at a standstill Sunday afternoon, as the drainage system could not cope.

Beijing’s decades’ old drainage system is not suitable for current requirements, especially as heavy rain is more common now, said experts Sunday.

“The capital’s drainage network is already outdated, although a lot of repair work has been done to maintain it,” said Zhang Junfeng, founder of the non-government water resource watchdog Happy Water Journeys.

“The capital’s drainage system could be among the most advanced across the country, but it isn’t on a par with some developed countries, where the systems are designed according to a much higher standard,” said Dai Shenzhi, a professor at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning at Tongji University in Shanghai.

The conversation is slowly but surely beginning to turn critical. We’ve mentioned this before, but the city’s infrastructure, at least in parts, seems inadequate to handle these type of rainstorms. Netizens seem to agree, as reported by Wall Street Journal:

“Sewers are not a face-giving infrastructure project,” artist Li Yijia wrote in response to the images, repeating a sentiment widely expressed elsewhere on the site.

“Beijing’s glossy appearance can’t withstand the erosion of a bout of heavy rain,” wrote another Sina Weibo user. “In just a few hours, Beijing is washed back into the old days. The city government hasn’t stopped rebuilding this city, but they can’t even deal with getting waterlogged.”

The incident brought out some good in people, however (like these people pushing a police car), and it’s heartening to read these stories. Via Tea Leaf Nation:

In the face of disaster, Beijing citizens showed an exceptional capability for self-rescue and mutual support. Many passengers stuck on the streets reported that they were picked up by private cars for free. @江湖酒吧69 recounted on Sina Weibo: “Around 11 pm, I waited for a taxi in desperation for nearly an hour, until a private car picked me up. The driver drove me for free and also picked up a couple of disabled foreigners and another couple along the way. He told me he had already picked up 27 people, and would continue till 2 am.”

…Many said that they were moved by and proud of the love and bravery shown by citizens. Xu Xin (@徐昕), a legal scholar,comments: “I’m sleepless tonight thinking about the heavy rain, the lives lost, the injured people and the police’s rescue efforts; I’m also thinking about so many asking for help on Weibo, and so many offering their help. The spirit of Beijing is not reflected by grand, meaningless words but by the pictures of Beijing tonight. The carrier of the spirit is Weibo, on which energy of kindness is being paid forward. ”

Columnist Zhao Chu (@赵楚) believes that such mutual support forms the basis of a civil, democratic society. “When you see people voluntarily show love for others and extend a helping hand, you have a civil, modern society,” he wrote.

There were bad stories as well, of run-of-the-mill greed and callousness, which we won’t excerpt here.

For a few hours, police were going around ticketing cars abandoned on the streets — but the government wised up and announced that those who were ticketed won’t need to pay the fines. Baby steps of progress.

UPDATE, 1:12 pm: BBC also has a good roundup, including of this China Daily summary.

Yesterday, Beijing saw its heaviest rainstorm since 1951, receiving on average 163.7 mm of precipitation as of 10 pm. Inevitably, there’s some bad news, which we’ll let China Daily deliver:

The heaviest rain in 61 years that lashed Beijing Saturday have left at least four people dead and six others injured, local authorities said.

Two people were killed and six others injured as strong winds toppled rooftops in two villages in the city’s suburban Tongzhou district, the Beijing Emergency Medical Center said.

The third person, also in Tongzhou, was killed after being struck by lightning. The fourth, head of a police station in suburban Fangshan district died of electric shock from a fallen electric wire in waters while rescuing trapped villagers.

About 475 flights have been canceled and 80 others delayed by more than one hour by 11 p.m., according to the Beijing Capital International Airport. The airport’s operation was starting to resume as the rain began to subdue.

The city didn’t collapse though, and that’s good news, and those among us who weren’t extremely unlucky last night have been blessed with possibly the finest-looking Sunday all summer. Before you get on with whatever fantastic plans you have, let us relive, one last time, The Rain:

Via Tori, at the Guo’an game:

Via @MissXQ:

H/T Alicia:

Via @aradboaz:

And finally, from professionals at QQ:

Beijing Cream’s coverage of the rain:

• In Beijing, Guo’an And Hangzhou Greentown Are Playing Soccer In A Swimming Pool
• Today’s Biblical Rainstorms In Beijing Enabled This Foreigner To Have A Splash
• Some People Are Having A Lot More Fun With This Rain Than Others
• The Party Is Apparently At Shuangjing Bridge
• The Rain Last Night Brought People Together, Too