Chinese police use inflatable turtle to rescue 13 people trapped by flood
With no rescue boats available, quick-thinking police officers use blow-up reptile to ferry residents to safety
The residents of a small community in central China owe their lives – or at least their dry clothes – to a group of quick-witted police officers and a giant inflatable turtle.
After heavy rains lashed a low-lying neighbourhood in the city of Liuyang, Hunan province, 13 people found themselves trapped in their homes on Sunday.
The speed at which the waters rose created a potentially life-threatening situation, and police in Changsha, the Hunan capital, which administers Liuyang, knew they had to act fast and get the residents to safety.
“It was an emergency,” read a statement on their Weibo microblog. “There weren’t any boats available, so we had to improvise,” it said.