Desperate villagers in central China wade through waist-high floods to reach safety
- Thousands said to be stranded near city of Xinxiang; at least 56 dead across Henan province
- Rescue efforts still limited with some residents told ‘elderly and children to be saved first’
But on Wednesday night 34-year-old Dong, who has a one-year-old son, was unable to sleep as she listened to the heavy and incessant rainfall and “stay alert” warnings broadcast on a loudspeaker by village officials.
At 3am water began to surge into Dong’s home, quickly reaching her ankles. Three hours later, when she and her husband grabbed their baby to get out, the world just beyond their front door had become terrifying.
03:56
As rains ease in central China, 3 million people still struggling with effects of deadly flooding
“The water was at my waist. I had to leave my son with a relative who has a house with two floors. It was the only way he could be safe,” Dong said. “It took me an hour to walk 200 metres out of the village, which usually takes minutes.”
Between 8am on July 17 and 6pm on July 22 there was 907mm (35 inches) of continuous rainfall in Xinxiang, a historical record, with the maximum in one hour reaching 149.9mm. At least 56 people have been killed across Henan.
With rescue efforts still limited, there are reports some residents are being told the elderly and children will be saved first. A 17-year-old high school student from the village of Xiayuan, also north of Xinxiang, said she and her younger sister were saved by a crew of firefighters, firstly by kayak. Her mother was still at home, she said, and most people were on rooftops waiting for help.
Dong estimated that around 2,000 people were trapped in Nanguanying. It had not flooded before, she said, and they did not expect such a devastating event.
The villagers are among more than 3 million people hit hard by the record rainfall in Henan, with flooded villages and cities, destroyed roads and landslides.
Online posts asking for help and videos showing floodwater pouring into houses in and around the city of Xinxiang, population 6 million, have been circulating since Wednesday.
However, most rescue efforts were 90km away in the province’s capital city Zhengzhou, said Yue Shuzhen, head of the Kaifeng Daliang social services centre, helping to transport supplies in the mountainous region of Xinxiang’s Hui county.
“More attention and rescue personnel and volunteers are in Zhengzhou, while small villages in other areas were left with little help,” Yue said.
03:08
Heroes emerge amid devastating China floods
As Zhengzhou began to recover slowly, in Xinxiang, a city to the north of the provincial capital, people living outside the downtown area were bracing for worse flooding.
More than 770,000 had been affected as of 3pm on Thursday, local authorities said, and seven medium-sized reservoirs had overflowed.
Deep water made it hard for rescue teams to get through, Yue said. His team took a day to transport supplies 180km from the city of Kaifeng to Xinxiang’s Nanzhai county where more than 500 people were displaced in a primary school.
When interviewed, Dong had been standing for hours on the main road next to her village, which resembles an isolated island, without eating and drinking.
South China Morning Post reporters saw her husband return and manage to carry their son out and a few other villagers walked out, the water up to their waists.
“I want to see my son as soon as possible, and find a place where there is water and electricity,” Dong said.
There were many old people in the area with no rescue personnel reaching them, she said.
Multiple departments including national flood control authorities and the Ministry of Water Resources have sent people to help with rescue attempts in Xinxiang and some NGOS had arrived including Blue Sky Rescue, state media said. But people are still searching for missing families.
Jingzi, who declined to give her full name, said her grandparents, in the Fengquan district of Xinxiang, had been trapped in their home and had not been heard from since Wednesday night.
The situation had worsened on Friday around Weihui – a city with a population of around 490,000 – about 19km from Xinxiang. A farmer from the area’s Xiayuan village swam two hours to escape from his home on Friday morning, in his underwear. He said water levels were higher than him and before leaving he had to move up to his second floor.
Leaving in a small car with his family, he said he was escaping “from the famine as I have nowhere to go, no food, nothing at all left”. He said most people in his village were still stranded on rooftops.
A pig farmer who had 250 pigs said he was facing a huge loss with as many as 150 swept away in the floods.
