Beijing's storm sewers couldn't cope with heavy rains. At least three dozen people are dead. Now, more downpours have flooded the city of Tianjin. Many are blaming government officials for being feckless. And more rain is coming.

Residents look at a submerged bus on a flooded street in the Chinese city of Tianjin on Thursday. Beijing and neighboring areas have experienced the worst rainstorms in six decades. At least 77 people were killed, Chinese authorities said Thursday.

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Residents stand by their home in Beijing on Thursday. Many people criticized the government's response to the storms.

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Soldiers place sandbags to block a breaching dyke after heavy rainfalls hit the Fangshan district of Beijing on Wednesday.

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A bridge leading to the town of Laishui, north of Beijing, collapsed on Tuesday.

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A young boy walks through a camp set up for victims of the flood in Beijing.

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A rescue boat approaches a partially submerged car on a highway in the Fangshan District of Beijing.

China Daily / Reuters/Landov

Residents look at a submerged bus on a flooded street amid rainfall in the Tianjin on Thursday. A much expected downpour bypassed Beijing Wednesday but battered the neighboring city of Tianjin instead, flooding many downtown streets and submerging vehicles.

China Daily / Reuters/Landov

Outrage in China about the dozens of deaths last weekend when Beijing's drainage system couldn't cope with heavy rains and much of the city was flooded has been followed by more frustration and anger today.

There was flooding Thursday in Tianjin, a city of 6 million, during a downpour there. Even the state-controlled Xinhua news agency couldn't ignore what was happening. "The downpour has paralyzed traffic in downtown Tianjin, drowning many roads. Dozens of vehicles were stranded on Baidi road in Nankai district after their engines died in the flood," it reports. "Many pedestrians complained they had to trek in knee-deep water. In some sections of Xianyang Street, flood water was waist deep."

As NPR's Louisa Lim reported for Morning Edition, the flooding in Beijing — which officially killed about three dozen people and caused about $2 billion in damages — has led to some comparing the disaster and the Chinese government's seeming fecklessness in preventing it to the U.S. government's failure to prevent and deal with the damage done to New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

"Many are questioning why the city's infrastructure is so poor that it can't cope with heavy rain," Louisa reported, and are calling what happened "terrorism by corruption." Confidence in the government's ability to provide basic services is eroding. And many in Beijing are very skeptical about the official claims concerning the number of deaths. "I think the figures should be much higher," a "Mr. Li" told Louisa.

Online, there has been "rage ... over the woeful sewer system in the capital and what many saw as a feeble government response," The New York Times' IHT Rendezvous blog adds. The government, Louisa says, has been waging a "propaganda war" — hailing the "triumph and bravery" of rescuers — to try and counter the criticism.

As the latest Associated Press story says, rumors are swirling about higher-than-reported death tolls and "in Beijing's worst-affected Fangshan district, residents were compiling their own death toll online using both public and private chat rooms on the popular Baidu website."

Towns around Beijing were also flooded by the weekend storms. More problems may like immediately ahead:

"AccuWeather.com forecasts more rain throughout the remainder of the week for Beijing, which could lead to additional flash flooding on the already waterlogged grounds and mudslides in the capital's mountainous regions."

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