A China Subway Flood Survivor’s Harrowing Experience: ‘I May Not Be Able to Get Out’

HONG KONG—As floodwaters surged into a stalled subway train beneath the Chinese metropolis of Zhengzhou, Pure Li hurriedly tapped out farewell messages to a near buddy on her smartphone. “I may perhaps not be in a position to get out,” she wrote.

The 26-12 months-old engineer was just one of additional than 500 travellers trapped during the evening rush hour Tuesday, as torrential rains pummeled the central province of Henan. A dozen people wouldn’t make it out alive, authorities say, and at least two have been nonetheless lacking as of Saturday morning.

Determined images from commuters surrounded by roiling drinking water went viral on Chinese social media this 7 days, striking a nerve in a place that has vastly expanded its subway programs, and suffered a series of serious underground flooding incidents that have elevated basic safety alarms.

On Thursday, China’s Ministry of Transportation purchased subway programs nationwide to re-analyze and boost contingency ideas for serious temperature. Authorities in Zhengzhou, Henan’s capital metropolis, and Zhengzhou Metro Team, the point out-owned subway organization, didn’t answer to requests for remark.

As rain fell in Zhengzhou on Tuesday, turning streets into quickly flowing rivers and wreaking hundreds of hundreds of thousands of pounds of hurt, in accordance to point out media, drinking water commenced to pool in a train yard, the metro organization claimed in a statement. It then broke by means of a wall and flowed into a tunnel.