The Chinese government has suspended four government officials in Hebei province on Sunday for dereliction of duty in coping with the deadly floods that left more than 200 people dead.

The officials suspended include a chief engineer from the Shijiazhuang municipal bureau of transport, the deputy head of Jingxing County, and two officials from the Communist Party of China (CPC) in Xingtai city, the Hebei Provincial Committee of the CPC revealed in a statement. The officials were reportedly "ineffective in flood prevention and rescue and relief work," according to the provincial government.

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It further added that all officials will be subjected to an accountability investigation and could face further punishments.

Many netizens were furious claiming that people were not given a heads up about the impending floods and that government officials failed to come up with an evacuation plan. Netizens also accused officials of "ineffective rescue efforts and trying to cover up the cause of the disaster," Xinhua News Agency reported.

"The village chief informed us about the flood situation around 2 a.m. that day, but the floodwaters had almost arrived by that time... We had no time to make preparations," a villager surnamed Zhang said.

Meanwhile, Dong Xiaoyu, the mayor of the worst-hit city, Xingtai, expressed his apologies on Saturday for the inadequate response to the storms, which caused 25 deaths and left 13 people unaccounted for. He explained that the local government underestimated the storm's intensity, had a late and incorrect disaster assessment, and weak emergency ability.

At least 114 people were killed and about 111 are unaccounted for in Hebei province on Saturday following torrential rains that hit the northern part of the country this week. Some 310,000 people were evacuated, while hundreds of thousands were trapped as water levels increased. A number of major cities in the central and northern parts of the country have also been submerged following the heavy rainfall.

TagsNepartak, torrential rains, suspension, typhoon, Hebei Province, Xingtai city