Beijing after the flood: basement is still home sweet home

Beijing's sky high apartment rents are leaving poor migrant families with little choice other than to live underground -- in the basement.

To Old Liu's family, that means returning to a place where their neighbor died because of where she lived.

Wang Jing, 33, was trapped in her Beijing suburb basement home the night of July 21 when the heaviest rain in six decades pounded the Chinese capital. Water poured into the room from all directions almost reaching the basement ceiling, Old Liu recalled.

Wang was electrocuted and drowned, according to the police account. She was among two, out of the 79 flood fatalities, who died in a basement.

More than one month has passed. As the inundated walls and floors dried up, people of the "mouse tribe", a popular Internet term to describe basement dwellers, eagerly returned to their underground homes.

"The most I want is to return home," Old Liu said while sitting with his family in their temporary shelter inside the street administration office's conference room. "Here is no home. It is very inconvenient."` The furniture includes two beds, quilts, wash basins, a kettle and almost nothing else.

Liu, in his 50s, prefers to be mentioned in the press as "Old Liu" or Uncle Liu. Since 2006, he had been living with his wife, son, and daughter-in-law in a 40-sq-meter underground quarter in the Fengtai district until they fled on that stormy night.

Four out of Wang's six neighbors plan to return, said Li Ying, head of the street administration office.

Old Liu said he was more concerned about simple accommodation than the risks of living in a basement. He has paid rent for a year but has not been able to contact his landlord since the flood. "Am I afraid to move back? But do I have a choice?" he mocked.

Real estate agents said a two-roomed apartment in Wulidian, where Liu lived, costs more than 2,000 yuan (315 U.S. dollars) a month, while one in the basement cost only half. A windowless underground quarter is even cheaper at 700 yuan a month.

"Only people who have very few choices at hand would live in a basement. That's why somebody died in there, few of the basement dwellers were prompted to move," Li said.

Beijing's monthly apartment rental grew 12 percent in the first half of the year to reach the average of 3,530 yuan per unit. The growth rate, however, was five percentage points lower than that in the same period last year, according to Home Link, a leading Chinese property agent company.

Old Liu declined to disclose his monthly salary. But the family's income is predicted to be modest at best as Old Liu works as a truck driver for a supermarket chain. His son works part-time in a restaurant and his daughter-in-law works in furniture retail.

It is estimated that there are more than one million people living in a basement in Beijing -- mostly in old apartment buildings and idle air-defense tunnels. The tunnels are much more difficult to live in as the rooms usually have no sunlight and are equipped only with communal toilets.

Authorities plan to shut down air-defense tunnels on safety grounds but are finding it hard to enforce a ban in one go. In Fengtai, 124 tunnels are expected to be closed in the next two to three years. Officials have started long and difficult negotiations with dwellers, trying to persuade them to move out.

Kang Dengjia, deputy head of the air-defense tunnel administration of Beijing, said basement dwellers can return to their flood-ravaged homes as long as the rooms are suitable for living again.

In Wulidian, around 3,000 people live in basements under the 29 residential buildings, Li said. Most of the basement dwellers have grown accustomed to surging waters springing out from kitchen and toilet floor drains during heavy rain.

"The property management firm promises to offer sandbags and pumps if water rises too fast," said a dweller surnamed Fang. "Otherwise, we can manage the flood risks by plugging the floor drains -- it's the simplest way."

Li expects no significant improvement on flood control for the basement dwellers until the government take on a big project and change the area's main drainage pipe to a bigger one.

For Old Liu's family, to permanently move out of the basement remains a distant goal. His son was sad after losing his ring, the photo album, and everything from his wedding, which was less than a month before the flood.

"It is Ok. These were not important things," the father said consoling his son and daughter-in-law. "When you two have children, we will move out."

He added: "I will not allow a child to be raised in the basement. As a father, I promise that."