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 teach beneath the Chinese city of Zhengzhou, Pure Li hurriedly tapped out farewell messages to a shut buddy on her smartphone. “I could not be capable to get out,” she wrote.

The 26-yr-outdated engineer was just one of extra than 500 passengers trapped all through the evening hurry hour Tuesday, as torrential rains pummeled the central province of Henan. A dozen individuals wouldn’t make it out alive, authorities say, and at the very least two were however lacking as of Saturday early morning.

Determined illustrations or photos from commuters surrounded by roiling water went viral on Chinese social media this week, placing a nerve in a region that has vastly expanded its subway methods, and suffered a sequence of serious underground flooding incidents that have raised protection alarms.

On Thursday, China’s Ministry of Transportation requested subway methods nationwide to re-analyze and strengthen contingency programs for excessive weather. Authorities in Zhengzhou, Henan’s funds city, and Zhengzhou Metro Team, the condition-owned subway company, didn’t answer to requests for comment.

As rain fell in Zhengzhou on Tuesday, turning streets into quickly flowing rivers and wreaking hundreds of hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage, according to condition media, water started to pool in a teach yard, the metro company explained in a statement. It then broke by means of a wall and flowed into a tunnel.