Major book warehouses near Beijing suffer colossal flood damage
Books are seen floating everywhere in a warehouse of bookschina.com in Zhuozhou, north China's Hebei Province.
Severe flooding in north China has caused significant damage to major book warehouses in Zhuozhou, a crucial logistic and storage hub for the domestic publishing industry in Hebei Province, near Beijing.
Following the loss, many publishers have announced delay in book deliveries for all customers of between 10 to 15 days, and the clean-up process is expected to last at least a month. More than 100 publishers have there warehouses in Zhuozhou.
One of China's earliest online book retailers, bookschina.com, announced on the Twitter-like Weibo that its major warehouses storing more than 4 million units of books were flooded, with a few staff members temporarily trapped inside the facilities.
China Media Time, a private book retailing company with a large and diverse readership in China, also revealed that 3.6 million units of books in storage were "all devastated," with an estimated financial loss potentially exceeding 200 million yuan (US$27.86 million).
Amid the damage, readers have expressed their understanding, calling on major retailers to hold special book fairs for the damp books after the calamity is over at reasonably-priced rates. "We will buy them regardless of their condition. After all, we read the content of the books, not the papers," one netizen commented.
North China, especially Beijing, has experienced spells of torrential rains brought by Typhoon Doksuri since the start of the weekend. The capital, in fact, has recorded its heaviest rainfall over the past few days since records began 140 years ago.
