Workers driving construction vehicles yesterday rescued stranded residents and delivered food to those still trapped after days of torrential rain swamped the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou.
As floodwaters began to recede, rescuers in the city of 12 million used digger trucks, inflatable boats and makeshift rafts to transport residents to dry land and deliver provisions in high-rise apartment blocks.
Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province, has borne the brunt of extreme wet weather in central China this week, receiving the equivalent of a year’s worth of rain in just a few days.
Photo: AFP
The resulting severe flooding killed 12 people who were trapped in the city’s subway system.
It also downed power supplies and stranded residents at home, in offices and on public transportation.
Some of the rescuers are volunteers using makeshift water craft, such as the digger trucks deployed by local construction companies.
One of the volunteers, Li Kui, 34, said that the demand for basic goods and food was immense.
“We start our day at 8am and go on until 2am. Besides having lunch and using the bathroom, we just go up and down the streets all day,” Li said.
Asked if he was exhausted, Li said: “Yes, but compared with the people trapped inside, they must be feeling worse.”
In other areas of the city where the floodwaters had subsided, municipal workers started the clean-up, sweeping away tree branches and clearing up other debris, including marooned bicycles and scooters.
Tens of thousands of rescue workers, including the military, have been deployed across Henan more broadly.
The death toll for the province from the flooding stood at 33.
Eight people remained missing as patchy mobile phone signal and power blackouts in some areas hindered official tallying.
Rescue professionals from neighboring provinces have been called in, along with specialized vehicles to drain waterlogged streets, intersections and road tunnels.
While the rains in Zhengzhou had eased to a light drizzle, other parts of Henan were still forecast to receive heavy rain yesterday, weather reports said.
In Xinxiang, a city north of Zhengzhou, 29 of 30 reservoirs were overflowing, a situation the local water conservancy bureau described as “grim.”
For rescuers, the task was sometimes upsetting. Local media reported that an infant was pulled from a collapsed home just outside Zhengzhou earlier this week, with the body of the child’s mother found a day later.
Zhou Xiaozhong, 33, a digger truck driver from nearby Kaifeng city, picked up a mother and her two young children.
“She was crying,” said Zhou, a father of three. “I too felt like crying.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in