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Please save
us!’ Grim scenes in China as flood inundates a subway
Steven Lee Myers
Updated Jul 22, 2021 – 11.15am,first
published at 9.17am
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The
subway train in Zhengzhou, a city of 5 million in central China, was
approaching its next station when the floodwaters began to rise ominously on
the tracks. The passengers crowded forward as the water rose, submerging the
cars at the rear first because they were deeper in the tunnel.
As the
water reached their waists, then chests, finally their necks, the passengers
called emergency services or relatives. One gave her parents the details for
accessing her bank account. Some cried. Others retched or fainted. After two
hours, it became difficult to breathe in the congested air that remained in the
cars.
A man
rides a bicycle through a flooded intersection in Zhengzhou in central China’s
Henan Province. AP
Ding
Xiaopei, a radio host, was afraid to call her children, 13 and 4. What could
she say? She posted a video that she thought might be her last message. “The
water outside has reached this position,” she said, it having reached chest
level, “and my mobile phone will soon run out of power.”
“Please
save us!” she wrote.
The
flood that inundated Line 5 of Zhengzhou’s subway on Tuesday added to the grim
global toll extreme weather has taken already this year, with scorching heat in
the Pacific Northwest, forest fires in Siberia, and flooding in Germany and
Belgium. Although flooding is common in China, researchers have attributed the
extreme weather sweeping the planet to the consequences of climate change.
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At
least 25 died in and around Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, including 12 people in
the subway, according to officials who briefed journalists on
Wednesday. Days of torrential rain that began on Sunday created scenes of
destruction that suggested the death toll could rise much higher.
Aerial
photographs showed scores of cars in Zhengzhou all but submerged, the fate of
their drivers and passengers unknown. Videos circulating online showed cars and
even people being swept away in churning torrents.
Vehicles
are stranded in floodwater near Zhengzhou Railway Station. Getty
The
First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, one of the country’s
largest, filled with floodwater, losing electricity and jeopardising patients
being treated or monitored with electrical medical devices. The subway remained
closed through Wednesday evening.
With
the rain still falling, nearly 10,000 people were trapped aboard passenger
trains in Henan, unable to move because water covered the tracks, the news
magazine Caixin reported. At least one carrying 735 people
came to a stop near Zhengzhou and, after more than 40 hours, had run out of
food and water.
By the
afternoon, some passengers were able to leave, while railway workers brought
supplies to those still waiting aboard for service to resume.
In a
sign of the severity of the disaster, China’s leader, Xi Jinping, ordered the
authorities to give top priority to people’s safety, Xinhua, the state-run news
agency, said in a report that described “heavy casualties and property losses”
without providing specific figures. Mr Xi called the flooding “very severe” and
warned that some dams had been damaged even as rivers exceeded alert levels.
Mr Xi’s
directive mobilised soldiers from the Central Theatre Command of the People’s
Liberation Army to help with rescue efforts and to shore up the Yihetan Dam
near the city of Luoyang, about 75 miles upstream from Zhengzhou, after it
suffered a 65-foot breach.
The
rain in the area was the heaviest on record in the city, according to China’s
state television network, CCTV. At one point, the city saw nearly 8 inches of
rain in one hour. In one day, the region recorded roughly the average annual
rainfall.
Flooding
was reported in several cities and towns, where people posted pleas for help on
WeChat and Weibo, two of the country’s biggest social networks. In the city of
Gongyi, at least 20,000 people were displaced by floodwaters that inundated
scores of homes, while mudslides washed away roads and cut off some villages.
At least four people were killed in that area.
Across
the province, more than 1 million people have been affected by the floods, the
officials said, though they said only seven people were reported missing by
Wednesday evening.
The
government often goes to great lengths to manage information about disasters,
sensitive about its history of under-reporting casualties. It is quick to limit
news coverage and censor blogs and social media sites to mute public
dissatisfaction with prevention and rescue efforts.
Some
people on Chinese chat platforms and social media sites have raised questions
about whether official news outlets in Zhengzhou and Henan province initially
downplayed the flood. When storms struck Beijing recently, the authorities
warned people to stay home, but there was no order to shut businesses or
schools in Zhengzhou ahead of Tuesday’s heavy rain.
In
times of disaster, the country’s state news media often focuses on the efforts
of rescue workers, including the military, while playing down the causes of
disasters and their damage. A journalism professor, Zhan Jiang, posted a note
on Weibo, the social media platform, on Tuesday complaining that a television
station in Henan province continued to show its regular programming instead of
providing public safety information.
The
terror in Zhengzhou’s subway began on Tuesday evening when floodwaters breached
a retaining wall near an entrance to Line 5, which makes a loop around the city
centre. The water poured into the system between the Shakou Road and Haitan
Temple stations, trapping the train Ding was riding with her husband at 6:10
pm.
By 8:35
pm, rescuers reached the train and devised a pulley system with ropes to help
passengers pull themselves through the floodwaters along a ledge in the subway
tunnel. The elderly and injured went first, followed by the women and then the
men. State news organisations said that 500 people were evacuated in all.
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One man
still missing was Sha Tao. When the subway car first flooded, he called his
wife and asked her to call the police. She has not heard from him since. She
posted a message on Weibo asking people for help, describing his height and
weight and the clothes he was wearing.
“I
haven’t found him yet,” she said when reached by telephone in Zhengzhou on
Wednesday. “I went to several hospitals, but the hospitals didn’t have any
information and couldn’t find him. His phone is now off.”
The New
York Times
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