See the devastation left by the floods in China 1:21
(CNN) -
At least 33 people have died and eight are still missing in central China, where authorities are stepping up rescue and recovery efforts after devastating floods that engulfed entire neighborhoods, left passengers trapped in subway cars, provoked landslides and overflowed dams and rivers.
Torrential rains have hit Henan province since last weekend.
They displaced hundreds of thousands of people and caused economic damage worth 1.22 billion yuan (about US $ 190 million), Henan authorities said on Thursday.
A bridge damaged after heavy rains that caused flooding in Gongyi, central Henan province, on July 21, 2021
Henan, with 99 million inhabitants, is one of the poorest and most populous provinces in China, with vast tracts of farmland and factories.
Zhengzhou, the capital of the province with 12 million inhabitants, is one of the worst affected areas, in which 12 people died after being trapped for hours in a flooded subway line.
Many smaller cities and towns have also been devastated after the floods in China.
More rains are forecast for the region, so the death toll is expected to rise as rescue work continues.
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In Gongyi, a city west of Zhengzhou, at least four people were killed when floodwaters washed away the streets.
Heavy rains also caused widespread housing collapse and landslides, hampering rescue operations.
In another city, Xinxiang, rivers have risen beyond warning levels and seven reservoirs have overflowed, affecting 58 counties and 470,000 people, according to state-owned People's Daily.
The severity of the floods was recorded in numerous videos shared on Chinese social media, showing how people and cars are washed away in torrents.
On Thursday, people who are stranded continued to ask for help on Wechat and Weibo, the country's two largest social media platforms, with some sharing photos and information of their missing family members.
This is how the floods affected a tunnel in the city of Zhengzhou on July 22, 2021.
'At the edge of collapse'
One of the most horrifying scenes of the flood disaster in China occurred underground, on Line 5 of the Zhengzhou subway.
During rush hour Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of commuters were trapped in rising water after murky torrents entered the tunnel and seeped into the cars.
Some posted videos and asked for help online.
The dramatic videos showing people holding onto roof handles to keep their heads above the rising water shocked the nation and made headlines around the world.
In another video, several lifeless bodies could be seen on the platform, while rescuers performed CPR on others.
Authorities said more than 500 passengers were evacuated from the flooded subway line.
There were 12 dead and five wounded.
On social media and in interviews with Chinese media, some survivors shared heartbreaking accounts of how the subway disaster unfolded.
Look at the floods that paralyzed central China 1:08
In a post on the Weibo microblogging site, a woman said that water began seeping into the subway shortly after it stopped between two stations.
The staff had first instructed passengers to exit the subway and evacuate through the tunnel, but shortly after they were told to return because there was too much water ahead.
By the time everyone had returned to the wagons, they were waist-deep in water.
And the level kept rising as more water filled the tunnel and seeped through the gaps between the car doors.
"We tried to remain standing on the seats as much as we could, but even so, in the end the water was up to our chest," he wrote.
"I was really scared, but the scariest thing was not the water, but the decrease in air in the car, as many seemed to have trouble breathing."
In the post, she said she overheard another woman giving her family her bank account details over the phone and wondered if she should do the same.
He sent a message to his mother saying that he might not survive.
When his mother called him back, he was suddenly speechless.
He told her he was still waiting for rescuers and hung up, spending the next two and a half hours "on the brink of collapse."
The floods submerged roads and washed away cars.
She eventually passed out from lack of oxygen, but then woke up due to the vibration of her phone.
It was a call from her mother telling her that rescuers were on their way.
At that moment he heard footsteps above the subway and firefighters began smashing the windows to let in fresh air.
He heard more rescuers arriving and they let them out one after another.
They first took out those who fainted and then the women, he wrote.
The post was removed from the network afterwards.
It is unclear why or by whom, and CNN was unable to verify the account.
Another woman told the state-run
China Youth Daily
that she couldn't help crying when she saw water entering the subway.
Around him other people were crying too.
But the truth is that they comforted each other, and gradually most chose to remain silent to conserve energy.
Some tried calling the emergency lines and asked family and friends for help, but to no avail.
By 9 p.m., the water inside the subway had reached their throats, he said.
There were children, pregnant women, and elderly people, and some around them began to shake, gag, and gasp.
"I was really terrified at the time. When I saw the water coming up over our heads through the window, I was getting ready to accept that I could never get out," she said.
He had only 30% battery left in the phone.
He closed all other apps on his device and sent messages to his family and friends on Wechat, but he didn't dare tell his parents, he said.
Before 9 pm, he would ask them to contact rescuers.
But after that hour, he mainly devoted himself to arranging for things to be taken care of after his death.
How to Prepare for Floods in China
During a press conference Wednesday night, officials observed a moment of silence for the flood victims in China.
More than 6,000 firefighters and 2,000 members of the military and paramilitary forces had been deployed to areas affected by the disaster, according to authorities.
They were trapped in a subway flooded 1:12
Although flooding during the summer months occurs every year in parts of China, recent record-breaking rains have alarmed scientists and officials, raising questions about whether the country is prepared to deal with more extreme and unpredictable weather conditions, amplified by climate change.
"Areas that are experiencing rapid urbanization are experiencing a sharp increase in risk," said Liu Junyan, leader of Greenpeace's climate and energy project in Beijing, in a recent press release accompanying the release of a report mapping risk. Increasing extreme weather conditions in China's major cities.
Scientists are concerned about how quickly the climate crisis amplified extreme weather events
"Building resilient communities means, first, identifying groups at risk, whether based on their location, income, well-being, housing, employment, medical history or other factors," Liu added.
'Once in 1,000 years'?
Henan authorities said the intensity of the downpour was unprecedented: more than 20 centimeters of rain fell on Zhengzhou in just one hour on Tuesday afternoon.
The figure is equivalent to a third of all the city's annual rainfall recorded in 2020.
The Zhengzhou Weather Station has described the level of rainfall as "once in 1,000 years."
Meanwhile, Henan's water resources department called the level of rainfall in some parts of the province "once in 5,000 years."
However, on Wednesday night, a senior meteorologist objected to those descriptions of the flooding in China at a press conference in Beijing.
Chen Tao, chief forecaster at the National Meteorological Center, said that it was difficult for meteorologists to reach that conclusion without long-standing reliable data, given that China's rainfall records date only to 1951, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
Climate change Floods
