Steven Lee Myers
07/22/2021 10:07
Clarín.com
World
Updated 07/22/2021 10:08 AM
The subway train from Zhengzhou, a city of 5 million people in central China, was approaching its next station when floodwaters began to
creep
up the tracks
ominously
.
Passengers thronged as the water rose, submerging the rear carriages first as they were deeper in the tunnel.
When the water reached their waists, then their chests, and finally their necks, the passengers called the
emergency services or their families.
People walk through floodwaters along a street in Zhengzhou.
Photo Chinatopix via AP.
One gave her parents the information to access her bank account.
Some cried.
Others retched or fainted.
After two hours, it was
difficult to breathe
in the congested air that remained in the cars.
A man rides a bicycle through a flooded intersection in Zhengzhou.
Photo Chinatopix via AP.
Ding Xiaopei, a radio host, was afraid to call her children, aged 13 and 4.
What could I say?
He
posted
a video that he thought might be
his last post.
"The water outside has reached this position," he said, having reached chest height, "and my cell phone will soon run out of power."
"Please save us!" He wrote.
Tuesday's flooding on Zhengzhou Metro Line 5 added to the grim death toll from
extreme weather conditions
that have already occurred this year, with scorching heat in the Pacific Northwest, wildfires in Siberia and flooding in Germany and Belgium.
Although floods are common in China, researchers have attributed the extreme weather sweeping the planet to the consequences of climate change.
At least
25 people were killed
in and around Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, including 12 people on the subway, according to authorities who informed reporters on Wednesday.
The days of torrential rains that began Sunday created scenes of destruction that suggest the death toll could be much higher.
Aerial photographs showed dozens of cars in Zhengzhou practically submerged, without knowing the fate of their drivers and passengers.
The videos that circulated on the Internet showed cars and even
people being washed away by the torrents
.
The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, one of the largest in the country, filled with water, losing electricity and endangering patients who were being treated or monitored with electrical medical devices.
The subway remained closed until Wednesday night.
With the rain still falling, nearly 10,000 people were trapped aboard passenger trains in Henan, unable to move because water covered the tracks, Caixin magazine reported.
At least one carrying 735 people stopped near Zhengzhou and, after more than 40 hours, had run
out of food or water.
In the afternoon, some passengers were able to get out, while railway workers carried supplies to those still waiting on board to resume service.
In a sign of the severity of the disaster, Chinese leader
Xi Jinping
ordered authorities to give the highest priority to the safety of the population,
Xinhua
, the state news agency, said in a report describing " large victims and material losses ", without providing concrete figures. Xi called the floods "very serious" and warned that some dams had been damaged as the rivers exceeded alert levels.
Xi's leadership mobilized soldiers from
the People's Liberation Army Central Theater Command
to assist in the rescue efforts and shore up the Yihetan Dam, near Luoyang city, about 75 kilometers upriver from Zhengzhou, after they suffered a break of 20 meters
Rain in the area was the heaviest in the city, according to the Chinese state television station CCTV.
At one point, the city recorded nearly
8 inches of rain in an hour
.
In one day, the region recorded roughly the average annual rainfall.
Floods were reported in several cities and towns, where people posted requests for help on
WeChat and Weibo
, two of the largest social networks in the country.
In the city of Gongyi, at least 20,000 people were displaced by the waters that flooded dozens of houses, while mudslides washed away the roads and cut off some villages.
At least four people died in that area.
Across the province, more than a million people have been affected by the floods, according to authorities, although they said only seven people had been reported missing as of Wednesday night.
China has a history of catastrophic flooding and the ruling Communist Party has tried to tame the country's volatile rivers and streams, but
risks from extreme weather conditions
appear to have increased, overwhelming drainage systems and rescue efforts and putting to test the leaders.
Last summer, China faced weeks of flooding along the Yangtze River that killed hundreds of people and displaced millions more.
The rains then filled the Three Gorges Dam to its highest level since it opened in 2003, raising concerns that the dam itself might fail.
The government often goes to great lengths to manage disaster information, sensitive to its history of
underestimating victims.
He is quick to limit news coverage and
censor
blogs and social media to quell public discontent with prevention and rescue efforts.
Some people on Chinese chat platforms and social media sites have raised questions about whether the official media outlets in Zhengzhou and Henan Province
initially
downplayed
the flooding.
When storms hit Beijing recently, authorities warned people to stay home, but there was no order to close businesses or schools in Zhengzhou before heavy rains on Tuesday.
In times of disaster, the country's state media often focus on the efforts of rescue teams, including the military, while downplaying the causes of disasters and their damage.
A journalism professor, Zhan Jiang, posted a note on the
social media platform Tuesday
complaining that a Henan province television station continued to broadcast its regular programming instead of offering information on public safety.
The terror in the Zhengzhou subway began Tuesday night when floodwaters breached a retaining wall near an entrance to line 5, which loops around the city center.
The water poured into the system between Shakou Road and Haitan Temple stations,
trapping the train
Ding was riding with her husband on at 6:10 p.m.
Trapped passengers posted videos that quickly circulated online as the disaster unfolded.
In one of them, the water came out of the windows of the subway car.
Other photos and videos - apparently some were
later removed by censors
- showed
several dead bodies
on a subway platform at Shakou Road station.
"It's like making a
horror movie
, my God," a man trapped in a subway car was heard saying on video.
Running out of air, someone used a
fire extinguisher
to break a roof window, letting in fresh air, Ding said in his messages and in an interview with the Jiemian news site, part of the state-owned Shanghai United Media group.
At 8:35 p.m., rescuers arrived on the train and devised a system of pulleys with ropes to help passengers navigate the floodwaters along a ledge of the subway tunnel.
The elderly and the wounded came first, followed by women and then men.
State media said
a total of 500 people
were
evacuated.
One of the men still missing was Sha Tao.
When the subway car was flooded for the first time, he called his wife and asked her to call the police.
Since then, she has
not heard from him.
He posted a message on Weibo asking people for help, describing his height and weight and the clothes he was wearing.
"I haven't found it yet," he said when contacted by phone in Zhengzhou on Wednesday.
"I went to various hospitals, but the hospitals didn't have any information and couldn't find him. His phone is now off."
Amy Chang Chien, Claire Fu, Li You, Liu Yi, and Albee Zhang contributed to the research.
c.2021 The New York Times Company
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