Following the heat wave that warmed China's capital city, authorities have announced on Friday, July 17, that the city is on a yellow alert for rainstorms that made heavy downpour starting Thursday evening. 

Heavy rainstorms have already started hitting Beijing, prompting weather authorities to raise a yellow storm alert, while southwestern suburbs Fangshan and Mentougou districts have also alerted their residents of a red storm alert in their areas, China.org.cn has learned.

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Despite the red alert, secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China Gou Jinlong said the two districts managed to pass the harsh weather conditions Thursday night.  

The color-coded weather signals are part of Beijing's four-tier, four-colored weather warning system. The red alert represents the most severe weather, which is then followed by orange, then the yellow alert and finally the blue alert, which is the least worrying signal among the four.

Amid the storm signals, the Beijing Meteorological Service has advised traffic authorities to put up traffic signs and signals in areas that tend to be very dangerous during rainstorms.

Additionally, they also want dispatch personnel to be on patrol and watch over the risky areas, like flooded roads, ENCS.cn reports.

In line with the safety precautions, the city's water bureau has also been taking certain steps that would ensure the proper draining of water from flooded streets and submerged roads in urban parts of the city.

The rainstorm signals come just a couple of days after Beijing announced that it was experiencing a heat wave of up to 40 degrees Celsius from Saturday last week to Monday this week.

Now, meteorological authorities said Friday morning that they are expecting for the rainstorm to last for only three days, as per The Statesman. 

In 2012, Beijing experienced the worst rainstorm in six decades. The downpour was so strong it even left 70 people dead. At the time, Fangshan and Mentougou were the worst-hit areas of the entire city.

Following the tragic incident, Beijing's city government reinforced infrastructure that can prevent floods as well as early warning systems that can alert residents of the violent weather conditions that are about to come. 

Tagsrainstorms, heat wave, Storm Alert