Guo Jinlong and Ji Lin resign following a flood of criticism against their handling of the emergency situation. In Beijing alone, 37 people and more died. Online commentaries express doubts about the real number. The government reacts by censoring criticism and personal accounts. People raise questions about the city's sewer system, inadequate to handle high volume of water.

Beijing (AsiaNews) - Recent floods killed more than 100 people across China, many in the capital. Beijing Mayor Guo Jinlong and his deputy, Ji Lin, were political casualties of the disaster after anger over the 37 dead in the capital forced them to resign. The Beijing Municipal People's Congress accepted their resignation, the People's Daily reported.

The disaster began last Saturday when Beijing was hit by its worst rainstorm in 61 years. In addition to landslides due to poor construction on the outskirts of the capital, the city's sewer system proved incapable of handling summer rain.

As casualties mounted so did anger on Sina Weibo, a Chinese language microblogging site similar to Facebook, which the authorities tried to stop and then censor because of the high number of negative comments.

Today, the Global Times, the People's Daily English edition, published an article titled "A storm of rumors as city recovers from floods," with references to alleged "international boycotts" to damage Beijing's image.

Online, criticism abounded. The South China Morning Post cited one blogger, Wen Hui, who compared Beijing's sewer system to that in other countries. He noted that in Paris sewers are 50 metres below ground and extend for 2,300 km, farther than the subway, that in Tokyo, Japan, they go down 60 metres, and that "The drainage systems of Rome that were built 2,500 years ago are still in use".

In view of the situation and in order to protect the party's image, the "government's internet censors were busy deleting not only criticism of officials' handling of the disaster, but also horrible accounts of people in the disaster," the South China Morning Post reported.

A day before resigning, Guo Jinlong visited the worst-hit area, Fangshan district. Afterwards, he said that the "government should carefully investigate and verify the losses and publish the information in a timely manner."

For some analysts, his remarks were seen as criticism of top Communist leaders, who ordered his removal.

• china
• beijing
• floods
• sewers
• criticism