HONG KONG — The mayor of the Beijing district worst hit by the weekend flood has apologized to locals as another predicted downpour skirted the capital, instead hitting the neighboring city of Tianjin on Thursday.

More than 1,000 rescuers were deployed in Tianjin, a city of almost 6 million people, as floodwater engulfed roads and forced flight cancellations, according to state media.

Severe flooding in Beijing claimed the lives of 77 people over the weekend, the Beijing municipal government said late Thursday.

The mayor of the worst-hit Beijing district of Fangshan issued a public apology Wednesday to the 800,000 people affected by the floods in the area.

“We moved 65,000 people to the highlands. But there were still many flushed away by the flood. As the district mayor, I should apologize to my fellow citizens,” Mayor Qi Hong said in a news conference broadcast on state-run CCTV.

For locals who were still shoveling mud from their homes, the apology offered little consolation.

Farmer Zhang Huishen told CNN four days after the downpour that she was outraged about the lack of concern from officials over the plight of her family.

“Nobody cares about us because there’s no official in this household,” she said.

Specific figures issued by district authorities on the scale of economic losses inflamed some locals, according to the Global Times.

Around 170,000 farm animals were killed when floodwater covered 5,000 hectares of farmland, causing economic losses of 6.1 billion yuan ($955 million), Xinhua reported, citing a statement from the Fangshan district government.

Of the 66,000 homes that were damaged, more than 8,000 were demolished, the statement said. About 50 bridges and around 750 kilometers (466 miles) of road also have been wrecked, it added.

Mayor Qi conceded that the flooding exposed problems with the city’s infrastructure.

“We learned from this rainstorm that the city infrastructure, especially the drainage system, needs to be improved,” he said on CCTV.

Chinese Vice Premier Hui Liangyu also stressed Wednesday the need for more disaster relief efforts.

“We are now at a critical period for flood control, and every region and government department must attach more attention to combating floods and providing disaster relief,” Hui said, according to Xinhua.

The weekend downpour was said to have been the worst in 60 years.

— CNN’s Dayu Zhang and Steven Jiang contributed to this report.