‘The whole town was submerged’: central China prepares for more flooding
- As provincial capital Zhengzhou starts to clean up, rescue efforts continue elsewhere
- Some places are being told to evacuate, others are sandbagging, while NGOs send supplies
In central China, Xinxiang resident Yuehai was out buying food on Wednesday afternoon when the sky opened up.
The water started pooling around her ankles as she raced home. “It seemed that if it kept raining like that, I’d have to swim back,” she said.
Yuehai, who only wanted to be identified by her first name, made it home safely. But other friends in the city in Henan province, 70km north of the capital Zhengzhou, were not so lucky – one became trapped in rising floodwater later that night after attempting to drive through it.
Much attention has been on the provincial capital, where the cumulative rainfall in three days was close to an average year’s worth and videos shared on social media showed chaotic scenes of cars flipped on flooded roads and ground-floor shops and flats swamped with water.
But with 3,000 military personnel working in 10 different danger zones across the city, Zhengzhou is starting to clean up, while other parts of Henan are bracing themselves for more flooding.