Metro flood kills 12 as trains inundated
BEIJING: At least 12 people have died after torrential rains flooded an underground rail line in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou, as shocking images of passengers struggling against neck-high water inside an inundated train carriage were posted on social media.
The city “has experienced a series of rare and heavy rain storms, causing water to accumulate in the Zhengzhou metro”, city officials said in a Weibo post
Water could be seen gushing through an empty underground platform in state broadcaster CCTV’s footage.
The city’s subway operator said it had closed all stations on all its lines due to the devastating flooding, as the city braced for more torrential rain. Hundreds of flights were also cancelled.
On its official Weibo account, the city’s fire service shared reports that passengers were being rescued from stranded trains.
One terrified passenger’s account said fire and rescue workers had opened a hole in the roof of her carriage and evacuated passengers one by one.
The state-run People’s Daily newspaper reported that houses had collapsed under the weight of raging floodwaters.
It said two people had been killed when a wall collapsed in another district of the city.
According to the local Zhengzhou weather authorities, the incessant rainfall was the heaviest since records began 60 years ago.
Weather authorities have issued the highest warning level for central Henan province, as CCTV showed submerged cars, shuttered shops and residents of flooded streets being rescued in rafts, one of them clutching a newborn baby.
Footage showed one man sitting on top of his half-submerged car in an underpass.
More than 10,000 people had been evacuated as of Tuesday afternoon local time, amid warnings that water levels in dams and reservoirs had surged to dangerous levels across the region.
Thousands of acres of crops have already been destroyed, causing an estimated $15m in damage.
The Chinese army warned that a stricken dam in the centre of the country “could collapse at any time”.
The regional unit of the People’s Liberation Army warned that the relentless downpour in Hunan province had caused a 20m breach in the Yihetan Dam in Luoyang, a city of about seven million people.
The PLA’s Central Theatre Command said it had sent soldiers to carry out an emergency response, including blasting and flood diversion.
Floods are common during China’s rainy season, which causes annual chaos and washes away roads, crops and houses. But the threat has worsened over the decades, due in part to the widespread construction of dams and levees that have cut connections between the river and adjacent lakes and have disrupted the flood plains that helped to absorb the summer rains.
Earlier this month, hundreds of flights were cancelled in the capital Beijing and other nearby cities, with schools and tourist sites closed, as torrential downpours and gale-force winds battered the region.