After the flood: Beijing residents left to count the cost with little state support
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Diverging Reports Breakdown
After the flood: Beijing residents left to count the cost with little state support
The floods that hit Beijing this week saw a year’s worth of rainfall in less than seven days, and stretched the emergency services to their limits. In total, 30 people are reported to have died in Miyun and Yanqing, another mountainous district on the edge of the capital, and more than 80,000 people have been relocated. Many Beijing residents received text messages from the local authorities warning them about the risks of landslides and flash floods. But the advice to ‘pay attention to safety’ didn’t offer much by way of specifics, and several people interviewed by the Guardian said they either didn’t receive, or didn’t notice, the warnings.Thanks to the climate crisis, extreme weather events are becoming more common in China. The social safety net for people who survive the disasters is minimal, but the people who do survive are becoming increasingly well-honed, thanks to the grim experience of the past few years. Many people who lost belongings in the floods are not covered by insurance.
“I was so scared … never since the 1980s have I seen such heavy flooding. We didn’t receive any warning in advance,” Wang said, surveying the soaked remains of her two-storey home in Miyun, a district on the outskirts of Beijing that was hit by heavy floods on Monday evening. By midnight, 28 Miyun residents were reported to have died.
“I feel grateful to be alive,” said 71-year-old Wang on Tuesday afternoon, still wearing her muddy clothes from the night before.
View image in fullscreen Wang Rongying at home in Miyun, which was hit by flooding this week. She was rescued from her rooftop after several hours. Photograph: Amy Hawkins/The Guardian
Like many of her elderly neighbours, Wang found refuge on her rooftop, where she waited for several hours to be rescued by emergency services. She waved a red piece of clothing to help rescue workers spot her more easily. At about 11pm, she was found and taken to an overnight relief centre where she was given sweets to help her manage her diabetes.
Warnings unheeded
The floods that hit Beijing this week saw a year’s worth of rainfall in less than seven days, and stretched the emergency services to their limits. In total, 30 people are reported to have died in Miyun and Yanqing, another mountainous district on the edge of the capital, and more than 80,000 people have been relocated. Eight people in neighbouring Hebei province were killed in a landslide caused by the rainfall. More than 130 villages lost power.
Many Beijing residents received text messages from the local authorities warning them about the risks of landslides and flash floods. But the advice to “pay attention to safety” didn’t offer much by way of specifics, and several people interviewed by the Guardian in Miyun said they either didn’t receive, or didn’t notice, the warnings.
“There was only a general notification, it wasn’t very helpful,” said a 37-year-old sanitation worker, who declined to give his name, as he trawled for any valuables that might have been washed up in Miyun’s Century Sports Park. The park’s lawn had been transformed into a muddy swamp by the floods. He was working in central Beijing when he heard about the floods on Monday. “My heart flew back to my family,” he said, “I couldn’t continue with my work”. By the time he got home, the waters had receded, but all his belongings had been soaked, he said. He estimated that his financial losses could amount to 20,000 yuan (£2,100), the equivalent of several months’ salary.
View image in fullscreen Destroyed trees in Miyun’s Century Sports Park. Many people who lost belongings in the floods are not covered by insurance. Photograph: Amy Hawkins/The Guardian
Wang, like many of her neighbours, is retired and lives on a modest income. Her pension is 3,000 yuan per month. She estimated the damage done to her house and belongings, which are uninsured, will cost about 100,000 yuan. “We just need to find a way to manage,” she said, offering chunks of watermelon to anyone she spoke to. Miraculously, her two pet parakeets, chirping in their cage, and her large poster of Mao Zedong, survived the disaster.
Thanks to the climate crisis, extreme weather events are becoming more common in China. Earlier this month China’s emergency ministry said that 25 million people had been affected by natural disasters in the first half of the year. Last month, several people died in heavy flooding in the poor, south-west province of Guizhou.
In 2023, a separate district of Beijing, on the western edge of the city, was hit by the heaviest rainfall on record, which killed at least 20 people.
Fending for themselves
China’s emergency response efforts are, thanks to grim experience, becoming increasingly well-honed, but the social safety net for people who survive the disasters is minimal.
View image in fullscreen Residents walk across a flood damaged road in Miyun district on the outskirts of Beijing. Several areas remain cutoff by floodwaters. Photograph: Andy Wong/AP
Wang’s neighbour, a 69-year-old retired farmer who gave his surname as Duan, was rescued along with his wife on Monday evening by a large forklift truck deployed to collect people from their rooftops. He said that everything in his house had been destroyed, including a new air conditioning unit that he recently bought for 6,000 yuan. “It was a big spend for us,” he said. His combined monthly income with his wife is about 4,000 yuan. Like Wang, Duan does not have insurance for his belongings and doesn’t expect to receive any compensation or support from the government for his losses.
Despite the scientific consensus that links rising global temperatures with natural disasters, the two are rarely linked in Chinese official media. Ordinary people, especially in less developed areas such as Miyun, often pay little attention to concepts such as climate change.
Standing on a corner of his flooded neighbourhood, its striking mountains visible on the horizon, Duan said he had no way to reach his home as the roads had become inaccessible. He estimated the waters would take several days to subside. “I don’t think it’s related to global warming,” he said. “It feels more like a once in century event.”
Residents in the worst-hit areas of Miyun were rescued and taken to local schools and government buildings that had been swiftly converted into relief centres. But some people were left to fend for themselves.
Li Qingfa, 75, runs a small guesthouse in the same neighbourhood. He said that although he would have liked to have been relocated, his guesthouse was used as a temporary emergency relief centre.
When the flood waters started rushing in, Li and his wife grabbed bedding, bags of wheat and sacks of rice to use as makeshift sandbags, spoiling more than 100kg of grain. “The financial losses are great, but there is nothing we can do about it,” he said, as he attempted to wipe clean the muddy waters swirling over the guest room floors.
Additional research by Lillian Yang
‘All Gone’: Beijing Villagers Left With Nothing After Deadly Floods
Swathes of northern China have endured deadly rains and floods this week. At least 48 people have died and tens of thousands have been forced to evacuate. AFP journalists visited the northern Beijing district of Huairou, one of the worst-hit areas. Villager Hu Yuefang returned home to pick up medicine for her elderly and disabled father, only to find it had been washed away by some of worst flooding to hit the Chinese capital in years. “I’ve never seen this before, in all my 40 years of life. Neither have those who’ve lived 80 or 90 years,” she said. “My heart feels very bad,” said a tearful villager surnamed Wang, who estimated his losses to be around 100,000 yuan ($14,000).”We’ve become wards of the state,” he said.
Swathes of northern China have endured deadly rains and floods this week that killed at least 48 people and forced the evacuation of tens of thousands.
As clean-up efforts began on Wednesday, AFP journalists visited the northern Beijing district of Huairou — one of the worst-hit areas less than 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the bustling city centre.
In Anzhouba village, muddy waters had receded, exposing scraps of metal and broken branches.
Local Hu recounted a frantic call to her stepdaughter, 23, who was home with her parents when the waters struck on Saturday night.
“But before I could finish my words, the call dropped,” she told AFP.
She later found out that rushing water from the river around 10 metres away had flooded the house and blocked the front door.
Her daughter was forced to kick out the window and evacuate her grandparents to the neighbour’s balcony, dragging her disabled grandfather as his wife pushed from below.
“I’ve never seen this before, in all my 40 years of life. Neither have those who’ve lived 80 or 90 years,” she said.
“I returned today to retrieve his medicine, but the water swept it all away.”
Wearing slippers, she marched over downed powerlines and debris from broken fences and destroyed cars as she surveyed the damage to the village where she has lived her entire life.
Mud with streaks of silt caked her walls — evidence that the flood waters had reached at least over a metre high.
“I’ve already lived here for many years — my parents have lived here for almost 70 years, I’ve lived here for 40 — I can’t bear to leave.”
A small blue sofa near the front door had washed out into the alley.
The family of six subsists off 2,000 ($278) to 3,000 yuan a month, Hu — a stay-at-home carer whose husband works as a labourer — said.
They grow their own vegetables — from green beans, cucumbers, potatoes — but the field has been destroyed.
“It’s gone. All gone, flushed away,” she said.
In Liulimiao town, which covers Anzhouba village, AFP journalists saw evacuations taking place throughout Wednesday, with elderly villagers driven by bus from their mountainous homes.
An older woman who declined to give her name said she was “not allowed” to return home but had gone back anyway to check in.
When the floods hit, she said, “there was nobody paying attention to us”, adding the water hit “suddenly” on Saturday.
Another villager, surnamed Wang, gazed at the destruction to his home which he built with government subsidies 15 years ago.
He estimated his losses to be around 100,000 yuan ($14,000).
His wife and two daughters were home and unable to open the doors when the waters “suddenly rose”.
The waters reached 1.5 metres (five feet), leaving brown muddy residue on the wall and a mounted TV.
Their car, which Wang bought so his daughter could practice driving, was washed uphill from outside of their home.
Five more minutes of flooding might have put his family’s life in danger, he said.
“It didn’t give people a chance,” Wang said.
His home was now “unlivable”, he explained tearfully.
“We’ve become wards of the state,” he said. “My heart feels very bad.”
Wang, 57, shows his flood damaged house after the recent heavy rains in Huairou district (Credit: AFP)
Hedge fund tycoon Hosking says rival Telegraph bid “ready to go”
Jeremy Hosking pledges to inject £100m of his own money into the newspaper group if the self-styled ‘British bid’ of which he is part is successful. Mr Hosking, who now runs Hosking Partners, has been working with Dovid Efune, the owner of the New York Sun, in an effort to gain control of the Telegraph for several months. RedBird Capital Partners, the US-based investment firm, has agreed to buy the titles for £500m following a two-year battle which has plunged the Telegraph into a protracted state of limbo. The RedBird-led acquisition of the Daily Telegraph remains subject to investigations by both Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority, which are likely to delay completion of the deal into next year. The Telegraph titles’ parent company was forced into insolvency proceedings in 2023 by Lloyds Banking Group.
Sky News has learnt that Jeremy Hosking, the prominent City figure who co-founded Marathon Asset Management, is pledging to inject £100m of his own money into the newspaper group if the self-styled ‘British bid’ of which he is part is successful.
Mr Hosking, who now runs Hosking Partners, has been working with Dovid Efune, the owner of the New York Sun, in an effort to gain control of the Telegraph for several months.
Money latest: The best places to retire in Britain
They have been thwarted, though, by an agreement reached with RedBird Capital Partners, the US-based investment firm, to buy the titles for £500m following a two-year battle which has plunged the Telegraph into a protracted state of limbo.
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RedBird’s bid includes tens of millions of pounds of funding from IMI, a state-backed Abu Dhabi vehicle, which cleared a key hurdle last week when the House of Lords voted against a ‘fatal motion’ which would have blocked the sovereign investment.
The outcome of the vote was not without fierce debate, with 155 peers supporting the ban.
IMI is controlled by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the vice-president of the United Arab Emirates and ultimate owner of Manchester City Football Club.
Speaking through Mr Efune, Mr Hosking said in a statement on Wednesday morning: “We have been following the latest developments closely and with the best outcome for all Telegraph stakeholders front of mind.
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“We understand from the Lords debate last week that there is now a legal requirement for the government to formally investigate all the foreign government ties that may result in influence over the current preferred buyer.
“Should the buyer be deemed unsuitable, our “British Bid” is ready to go.
“We believe our current capitalization is more than adequate to replace the controlling shareholder’s portion of the deal.
“My own personal commitment is £100m in equity capital.”
Further details of the financing lined up by Mr Efune’s consortium remain unclear, including the level of debt attached to his prospective offer.
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The RedBird-led acquisition of the Telegraph remains subject to investigations by both Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority, which are likely to delay completion of the deal into next year.
Sky News previously revealed that Sir Leonard Blavatnik, owner of the DAZN sports streaming platform, and Daily Mail proprietor Lord Rothermere were preparing to buy minority stakes as part of the RedBird transaction.
Gerry Cardinale, the RedBird executive, who has spearheaded the latest iteration of its acquisition, has described the firm as “the right owner at the right time”.
RedBird said in May that it was “in discussions with select UK-based minority investors with print media expertise and strong commitment to upholding the editorial values of the Telegraph”.
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The Telegraph titles’ parent company was forced into insolvency proceedings in 2023 by Lloyds Banking Group, which ran out of patience with the Barclay family, their long-standing owner.
RedBird IMI, a joint venture between the two firms, paid £600m several months later to acquire a call option that was intended to convert into ownership of the Telegraph newspapers and The Spectator magazine.
That objective was thwarted by a change in media ownership laws – which banned any form of foreign state ownership.
Some peers argued last week that a 15% threshold was too high and that the legislation to permit it was dangerously ambiguous because it could allow for more than one state investor to aggregate their holdings in British newspapers.
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A further statutory instrument will need to be approved in order to address this issue.
The Spectator, which had also been part of the same group, was sold last year for £100m to Sir Paul Marshall, the hedge fund billionaire, who has installed Lord Gove, the former cabinet minister, as its editor.
Booker Prize announces ‘wonderful’ longlist of 13 books that left judges ‘elated’
British authors secured the highest number of nominations with Natasha Brown, Jonathan Buckley, Andrew Miller, Benjamin Wood, and the Hungarian-British writer David Szalay each landing a spot on the longlist. Nine of the 13 longlisted authors are first-time Booker Prize nominees, with former winner Kiran Desai back on the list 19 years after taking the top prize for The Inheritance of Loss. A shortlist of six titles will be unveiled on 23 September, before the winner is announced on 10 November at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London. The winner receives £50,000, while shortlisted authors each win £2,500 along with a specially bound edition of their book. Just two debut novelists – Maria Reva and Ledia Xhoga – are the only debut novelistists on longlist, with India, Malaysia, and Trinidad represented by the nominated authors. Chairman of the judges Roddy Doyle noted that the novels “experiment with form” and “examine the past and poke at our shaky present”
British authors secured the highest number of nominations with Natasha Brown, Jonathan Buckley, Andrew Miller, Benjamin Wood, and the Hungarian-British writer David Szalay each landing a spot on the longlist for the prestigious award, which is given annually to a full-length novel written in English.
This year’s selection “champions global perspectives”, and features the highest number of different nationalities in a decade, with India, Malaysia, and Trinidad represented by the nominated authors.
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Chair of the judges Roddy Doyle noted that the novels “experiment with form” and “examine the past and poke at our shaky present”.
“It’s a wonderful heap – I don’t think I’ve seen a better one,” Doyle said. “At the end of our last, very long meeting, when we’d added the final book to the heap, we all felt relieved, elated – and maybe a bit proud.”
Nine of the 13 longlisted authors are first-time Booker Prize nominees, with former winner Kiran Desai back on the list 19 years after taking the top prize for her 2006 book The Inheritance of Loss. If the Indian author wins for The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny – a book that was two decades in the making – she will become the fifth double winner since the prize’s inception in 1969.
Maria Reva and Ledia Xhoga are the only debut novelists on the longlist. Canadian-Ukrainian Reva’s Endling focuses on the journey of three women – and one extremely endangered snail – through contemporary Ukraine during Putin’s invasion, while American-Albanian Xhoga’s Misinterpretation follows an Albanian interpreter wh reluctantly agrees to work with a Kosovar torture survivor.
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Two previous shortlisted authors making an appearance on this year’s longlist are Miller, whose novel Oxygen was nominated in 2001, and Szalay, whose book All That Man Is received a nod in 2016.
Miller has now been longlisted for The Land in Winter, a novel set during Britain’s coldest winter, with Szalay nominated for Flesh, a book that uses prose sparingly to depict a portrait of one man’s life as he travels from Hungary to Iraq to London.
The Booker Prize 2025 longlist features just two debut novelists – Maria Reva and Ledia Xhoga – and former winner Kiran Desai (Yuki Sugiura for Booker Prize Foundation)
Former US professional basketball player Ben Markovits has been longlisted for his 12th novel. The Rest of Our Lives tells the story of a man who decides to go on a road trip after dropping his daughter off at college.
Also on the longlist are Malaysian writer Tash Aw, Trinidadian author Claire Adam, and American writers Susan Choi and Katie Kitamura.
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A shortlist of six titles will be unveiled on 23 September, before the winner is announced on 10 November at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London. The winner receives £50,000, while shortlisted authors each win £2,500 along with a specially bound edition of their book.
Booker success can also prompt a huge boost in sales for novelists. In the week after Prophet Song by Irish writer Paul Lynch was announced as last year’s winner, sales increased by 1,500 per cent, and the book climbed to number three on the Sunday Times bestseller list.
Other recent Booker winners include Samantha Harvey, Shehan Karunatilaka, Damon Galgut, Bernadine Evaristo, and Margaret Atwood.
The Booker Prize 2025 longlist in full
Love Forms by Claire Adam (Faber)
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The South by Tash Aw (4th Estate)
Universality by Natasha Brown (Faber)
One Boat by Jonathan Buckley (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
Flashlight by Susan Choi (Jonathan Cape)
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai (Hamish Hamilton)
Audition by Katie Kitamura (Fern Press)
The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits (Faber)
The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (Sceptre)
Endling by Maria Reva (Virago)
Flesh by David Szalay (Jonathan Cape)
Seascraper by Benjamin Wood (Viking)
Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga (Daunt Books Originals)
40,000 new homes to be built on railway land across Britain
Department for Transport unveils new property company, Platform4. Will oversee development of up to 40,000 new homes on brownfield sites. Will initially operate across England and Wales, with potential for Scotland. Profits generated by Platform4 will be reinvested directly into Britain’s railway network. Four locations already earmarked for regeneration are Newcastle Forth Yards, Manchester Mayfield, Cambridge and Nottingham. The initiative is projected to deliver an additional £227 million by accelerating development and operating at a larger scale than previous efforts. The company will be chaired by Bek Seeley, who has held several roles in regeneration projects.
The Department for Transport (DfT) confirmed the new organisation will initially operate across England and Wales, with potential for future expansion into Scotland.
Platform4 aims to streamline the process of releasing land for housing, a role previously fragmented between London and Continental Railways Ltd and Network Rail’s property team.
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The DfT stated this prior “fragmented approach” often led to “inefficiencies, duplicated efforts and missed opportunities.”
Profits generated by Platform4 will be reinvested directly into Britain’s railway network.
The initiative is projected to deliver an additional £227 million by accelerating development and operating at a larger scale than previous efforts.
The Department for Transport said Platform4 will ensure up to 40,000 homes are built over the next decade (Alamy/PA)
Four locations already earmarked for regeneration are Newcastle Forth Yards (an opportunity for up to 600 new homes), Manchester Mayfield (up to 1,500 new homes), Cambridge (425 new homes), and Nottingham (200 new homes).
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Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said: “Our railways are more than just connections between places – they create economic opportunity and drive regeneration.
“It’s exciting to picture the thousands of families who will live in these future homes, the vibrant neighbourhoods springing up, and the new businesses that will launch thanks to these developments.
“Platform4 will breathe new life into these spaces, delivering tens of thousands of new homes as part of our Plan for Change promise to build 1.5 million homes, while reviving communities around rail stations, supporting jobs and driving economic growth.”
Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner said: “We are facing a housing crisis which has led to a generation being locked out of homeownership, all while land sits empty and disused across the country.
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“We said we’d do everything possible to get Britain building, and that’s why today we’re setting out how we’ll get more homes built across surplus railway network sites in line with our brownfield-first approach.”
Platform4 will be chaired by Bek Seeley, who has held several roles in regeneration projects.
She said: “Working alongside our partners and local authorities, we will create sustainable places that bring communities and customers together and leave a positive legacy for future generations.”