Subway passengers in China’s central Henan province were trapped in waist-high floodwaters on Tuesday after heavy rains caused rivers to burst their banks.
In video published on social media, subway passengers in Zhengzhou, Henan’s capital, could be seen standing in a pool of muddied water, waiting for rescue.
In a video posted on Weibo, the Henan Fire Department said that at least one person had been rescued from the train line as the department worked to free others.
Meanwhile, torrential waters could be seen running through city streets, with vehicles submerged in water in a video shared by China state-affiliated outlet Global Times.
In a statement published on the Zhengzhou local government’s website, the city warned that the “flood control situation is grim.”
The risk of disaster, the city said, is “extremely high.”
In a separate statement published on the government’s official WeChat account, officials warned residents to stay home or in a safe place and to remain alert for updates.
So far, no deaths have been reported in connection with the floods, according to Reuters.
A disaster relief emergency dispatch meeting was held on Tuesday, the city said, with Xu Liyi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee, leading the talks.
The major floods come as heavy rains have pounded Henan, a province twice the size of Austria, for days since the weekend.
During Tuesday’s emergency meeting, Xu said such high levels of rainfall was a rare occurrence in Henan.
In the midst of the flooding, train services have had to be suspended in the midst of the heavy floods, while many highways have been closed and flights delayed or cancelled entirely.
There are also fears that the flooding could threaten important landmarks, with the rising Yi River posing a risk to the Longmen Grottoes, a UNESCO World Heritage site featuring ancient Buddhist statues near the city of Luoyang.
According to UNESCO’s website, the grottoes contain the “largest and most impressive collection of Chinese art of the late Northern Wei and Tang Dynasties.”
The incident unfolds as Germany and other parts of western Europe grapple with the impact of severe flooding that has left at least 197 people dead, with at least 300 others missing and 749 injured, according to police and affected regional governments.
The floods in western Europe, along with the recent deadly heatwave seen in parts of the western United States and Canada have placed a fresh focus on the climate crisis, with politicians and climate experts alike warning that the global community must ramp up its efforts to combat climate change.
Ed Flanagan contributed.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
