Torrential rains in Beijing led to the deaths of at least 30 people overnight, the Chinese authorities announced on Tuesday, after much of northern China was lashed by severe downpours that set off flooding and landslides.

As of midnight, more than 21 inches of rain had fallen on Miyun, a mountainous district of northeastern Beijing, the Chinese capital, where 28 of the deaths occurred, according to CCTV, the state broadcaster. Across the entire city, the average rainfall was more than six inches.

Two other people died in Yanqing, a district in the capital’s northwest.

“Continuous heavy rainfall caused major disasters,” CCTV said in a report on Tuesday as the downpour continued.

More than 80,000 people in the capital have been relocated, the broadcaster said. Dozens of roads were damaged, and 136 villages in the area, which is largely rural despite being within Beijing’s administrative area, had lost electricity.

Beijing raised a red-level flood alert, its highest, on Monday night, urging people not to go outside unless necessary. Schools and construction sites were ordered closed.

On Monday evening, before the casualties were announced, state media reported that China’s leader, Xi Jinping, had ordered officials to focus on flood prevention and rescue work. He said that China was “currently in the critical period of flood prevention from July to August,” according to Xinhua, the state news agency.

He also said that rainfall across much of northern and eastern China had led to “major casualties and property losses” in recent days.

Deaths caused by heavy rain have been announced in other parts of northern China in recent days, including Shanxi Province, where a bus went missing on Sunday. In the city of Jinan, in Shandong Province, at least two people died last week after half of a typical year’s rainfall fell in five hours, state media reported.

In 2023, Beijing was pounded by the most rain it had experienced in 140 years of record-keeping. But most of the damage was in neighboring Hebei Province, where officials said they had opened flood gates to “build a ‘moat’ for the capital.” That led to anger in the affected parts of Hebei, where residents said they had not been given ample warning.

In 2012, severe flooding in Beijing and Hebei killed 145 people.

Zixu Wang and Joy Dong contributed reporting from Hong Kong.