When the rains started, residents in Taishitun were not overly worried. The rural township, about 70 miles northeast of central Beijing, sits on a plain far from mountains that could generate mudslides and had no recent history of flooding.

大雨开始落下时，太师屯镇的居民们并不怎么担心。这个乡村小镇位于北京市东北部，距离市中心约110公里，地处远离山区的平原，不会遭受山区可能发生的泥石流，而且近代未曾发生过洪水。

Though it is near the convergence of three rivers, the closest is about a quarter of a mile away and feeds into a massive reservoir downstream.

尽管小镇离三条河的交汇处不远，但最近的一条河距离镇子也有大约400米，而且那条河直通一座大型水库。

So it came as a shock when that river, the Qingshui, suddenly burst through its flood banks in the early hours of July 28, sending torrents of water through the streets. Residents ran outside, yelling at their neighbors to wake up, and scrambled onto rooftops.

因此，当那条名为清水河的河流在7月28日凌晨突然漫过河堤，导致街道被急流淹没时，人们震惊不已。人们冲出家门，大声叫醒邻居，并慌忙爬上屋顶。

One of the first buildings to be inundated was the Taishitun Elderly Care Center. Inside, 55 of the 69 residents were either fully or partially incapacitated and dependent on the eight workers there that day to move. The one-story nursing home was soon submerged in six feet of water.

太师屯镇养老照料中心是最早被淹没的房屋之一。养老中心的69名老年居民中有55人完全或部分失能，行动需要工作人员帮助，养老中心那天有八名工作人员。养老中心的平房很快被近2米深的洪水淹没。

Firefighters arrived around 7 a.m. but were overpowered by currents that, at their peak, were flowing faster than the Niagara Falls. They began rescue operations only three hours later. Footage on Chinese state media showed rescue workers with ropes, swimming into the nursing home to reach people clinging to windowsills. But many of the residents had already perished. In total, 31 people died — a toll that shocked the capital and beyond.

消防人员在早上7点左右赶到了那里，但汹涌的洪流将他们拦下，洪水的水流在最猛烈时比尼亚加拉大瀑布还要湍急。三个小时后，救援行动才开始展开。中国官媒公开的画面显示，救援人员拴着绳子游进养老中心，尝试救出那些紧紧抓住窗台的人。但多数老人已经遇难。总共有31人死亡，这个数字震惊了首都乃至全国。

“To be honest, no one expected this. And it’s not just common people. Our village has people over the age of 70, even over 80, and they have never seen such bad weather since they were children,” said Cai Xiaokui, 49, who is from the same area, Putaoyuan village, as the nursing home.

“说实话，谁也没想到会出这种事。不只是普通老百姓。我们村里有些老人已经七老八十了，打小就没有见过这么恶劣的天气，”49岁的蔡小奎（音）说道，他所在的葡萄园村与养老中心属于同一个镇。

As the country braces for more extreme and unpredictable weather caused by climate change, the disaster in the Miyun District of Beijing also has exposed what local officials admitted were “flaws” in emergency planning. City officials issued a rare apology and this week called for all flood prevention and disaster relief measures to be “unremittingly implemented.”

随着中国为气候变化带来的更极端、更难以预测的天气做准备，北京市密云区的这场灾难也暴露出应急预案存在“漏洞”，当地官员对此也予以承认。北京市官员为此罕见地道歉，并在本周要求“踏踏实实落实”所有防洪救灾措施。

密云区位于北京东北部的山区，那里的一家商店在上个月的洪水过后一片狼藉。

As global temperatures rise, shifting ocean currents are causing more rainfall in China’s typically arid north. A report released in June by China’s Ecology and Environment Ministry said precipitation in northern China last year was 83 percent higher than the average between 1991 and 2020.

随着全球气温升高，洋流的变化导致历来干旱的中国北方地区降水增多。中国生态环境部今年6月发布的一份报告指出，华北地区去年雨季的降水量比1991年至2020年的平均值高出了83%。

The recent floods in Beijing and neighboring Hebei Province — which killed at least 60 people and displaced more than 80,000 people — mark the fifth time the region has been hit by extreme rains in the last 15 years.

北京及邻近省份河北最近发生的洪灾已造成至少60人死亡，迫使逾8万人转移，这标志着该地区15年来第五次遭受极端降雨。

Across China, the number of flash floods has at least doubled compared with a stretch before the year 2000, according to a recent analysis by Guangtao Fu, a professor at the University of Exeter focusing on water systems.

英国埃克塞特大学研究水资源管理的教授伏广涛最近的分析显示，与2000年之前的一段时期相比，中国各地突发洪水的次数至少增加了一倍。

Mass floods in the capital in 2012, 2016 and 2023 were concentrated in the south. But this year, the rains struck to the north, where residents and officials were less prepared.

首都曾在2012年、2016年和2023年发过大水，受灾地区集中在北京南部。但今年的强降雨发生在北部，那里的居民和官员们准备不足。

Before the floods hit, it had rained for five days straight, with some areas of Miyun pounded by nearly a year’s worth of precipitation. The heavy downpour in Miyun, as well as upstream in the Ganyu Valley, caused the Qingshui River to surge to record levels. By the morning of July 28, the river’s rate of flow was 1,500 times its normal level.

密云发大水前已连续五天降雨，部分地区的降水量已接近往常的全年降水量。密云以及水库上游干峪沟的强降雨导致清水河水位突破历史极值。到7月28日凌晨，清水河的流量已达到平日的1500倍。

That torrent surged into Taishitun, taking out trees and cars, and sped downstream to the Miyun Reservoir, which had already risen to its highest level since it was built in the 1960s. The authorities had issued a red alert, the highest level, 48 hours earlier — but no particular instructions to evacuate.

迅猛的洪流涌入太师屯镇，冲倒了树木，冲走了汽车，然后迅速流入下游的密云水库，水库当时的水位已达到20世纪60年代建成以来的最高水平。虽然当局曾在48小时前发布了级别最高的红色预警，但并未下达具体的疏散命令。

密云水库泄洪，摄于上个月。

After the deaths at the nursing home, Beijing officials held a news conference where they issued the apology and acknowledged that more than 16,000 people in Miyun had been evacuated, with officials going door to door in some areas — but not to the nursing home.

养老中心出现人员死亡后，北京市官员召开了新闻发布会，并在会上道歉，官员们介绍说，密云区已转移了逾1.6万名群众，虽然官员曾在几个地方挨门挨户地动员转移，但他们没有去养老中心。

“For a long time, the town center where the nursing home is was safe” said Yu Weiguo, secretary of the Miyun District Committee. “That shows flaws in our contingency plan and that our understanding of extreme weather is not enough,” Mr. Yu said before he and other officials bowed their heads in a moment of silence.

“长期以来，养老中心所在镇中心区域都是安全的，预案没有将其列入转移范围，”密云区委书记余卫国说。“这说明我们的预案是有漏洞的，我们对于极端天气的认识是不足的。”余卫国说完这番话后，与其他官员一起低头默哀。

China’s Meteorological Administration said two days after the deaths that accurate forecasting of such extreme weather is still a “global problem” and that the agency would work on “strengthening” its early warning capabilities.

中国气象局在此事发生两天后表示，准确预报这类极端天气仍是一个“全球性难题”，气象部门将努力“加强”预警能力。

In a country where many families wrestle with how to care for their aging relatives, the deaths in Miyun have touched a nerve. On social media, commentators posted videos calling for an overhaul of nursing home safety or for citizens to take better care of their parents.

在许多中国家庭面临养老困境的当下，密云养老中心几十名老人的死亡触动了人们的神经。有评论者在社交媒体上发视频呼吁彻底改革养老院的安全措施，或呼吁老百姓更好地照顾父母。

“The Miyun incident shows the failure of disaster response that relies on past experience,” Lu Jingsheng, a professor at the School of Business at Renmin University of China wrote in an article published on WeChat. “A civilized society must uphold its responsibility to vulnerable groups.”

“密云事故彰显以往依赖经验救灾失效，”中国人民大学商学院教授吕景胜在微信上发文写道。“文明社会应对弱势群体负责。”

After the previous floods, officials in Beijing updated urban drainage and added pumping systems to low-lying areas to funnel water away, according to Ma Jun, an environmentalist and the founder of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs.

据北京公众环境研究中心的创始人、环保人士马军说，前几次洪灾发生后，北京市的官员们升级了城市排水系统，在低洼地段增设了抽水泵，将积水抽走。

救援人员在密云，摄于上个月。

“This time there’s still some very hard lessons,” Mr. Ma said. “Obviously, the monitoring still has gaps. The early warning forecast is still not as accurate as we would like to see.”

“这次仍有一些非常惨痛的教训，”马军说。“很显然，监测仍存在差距。预警预报仍不像我们希望的那样准确。”

The Qingshui, like many rivers in northern China, has been dredged and modified for better flood control. But experts say adding flood walls or channeling rivers between concrete embankments — China’s traditional method of flood prevention — has made such disasters worse because the surrounding area is less able to absorb the water.

为了提高防洪能力，政府已对清水河以及中国北方的许多河流进行了疏浚和改造。但专家们表示，中国传统的防洪措施——增加防洪堤的高度或用混凝土对河道两边进行加固——反而加剧灾情，因为这些措施导致周边地区的蓄水能力遭到削弱。

“We need to make the ground permeable. We need to remove all the concrete,” said Kongjian Yu, a landscape architect and professor at Peking University. “We need to change, but engineers keep building higher and higher flood walls.”

“我们需要让地面可渗透。我们需要拆掉所有的混凝土，”北京大学教授、景观设计师俞孔坚说。“我们需要改变做法，但工程师们仍在把防洪堤建得越来越高。”

Floods in the northwestern province of Gansu have killed 15 people, officials said on Saturday, prompting China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to order all-out efforts to try to rescue more than 30 people still missing.

中国官员上周六表示，西北省份甘肃的洪水已造成15人死亡，促使中国领导人习近平下令“千方百计搜救”30多名失踪人员。

After the floods receded in Putaoyuan, residents complained of the stench of dead fish and dead animals. The insides of people’s homes were covered in mud. Still some praised the rescue efforts by their neighbors.

葡萄园村的洪水退去后，居民们抱怨村里到处能闻到死鱼和死动物的恶臭。民居内淤泥遍布。但也有人称颂邻里的救援壮举。

A group of men in the village had used front-end loaders to ferry residents from their rooftops to safety or to guide emergency workers on inflatable boats. Mr. Cai, who runs a guesthouse in the village, offered rescue workers free accommodation. He said that in the aftermath of the floods, local restaurants have not been charging residents for meals.

村里的一群男子曾用装载机把屋顶上的居民运到安全地带，或给坐在充气艇上的救援人员当向导。蔡先生在村里经营着一家民宿，他为救援人员免费提供了住宿。他说，当地餐馆在洪水发生后曾为大家提供免费餐食。

“That feeling of solidarity is really strong,” he said. “You know, normally neighbors might have little disagreements, but when something this big happens, people really aren’t selfish at all.”

“那种团结的感觉真的很强烈，”他说。“要知道，邻居之间通常可能会有些小矛盾，但发生这么大的事情后，人们真的一点儿都不自私。”