The historic rainstorm that struck the Chinese capital last Saturday washed away the gloss of decades of rapid growth, revealing the failures of its infrastructure and its leaders, write Jacob Fromer and Edward Wong.
The catastrophic flooding that killed at least 77 in the city proper, and inundated many neighborhoods with murky water several feet deep, has encouraged much navel-gazing in a city that looked "more an accidental Venice than the capital of a superpower."
According to Fromer and Wong, "The storm, the heaviest to hit Beijing in more than 60 years, has
prompted tough questions about the management of this city of 22
million, which unveiled its bright, shiny face to the world during the
Olympics four years ago. Fury has raged on the Internet, as users post
messages on microblogs criticizing local officials and asking how
Beijing's infrastructure, praised by many visitors, could have failed so
miserably during one rainstorm."
Li Chengpeng, a prominent liberal journalist, wrote on his blog, "They
never realized that in addition to putting makeup on this city to make
it look pretty, they should have also built sewers that actually work."
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