The Fabled Yellow River and Climate Change
"The water reached my chest.""I was really scared, but the most terrifying thing was not the water, but the diminishing air supply in the [subway train] carriage."Resident of Zhengzhon, Henan Province, China"[I had] no water, no electricity, and no internet.""Never in my life had I seen so much rain. There was one hour where the rain was just pouring down on us from the heavens, and everything went completely white."Mr Liu, 27, Zhengzhon resident
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| People walk through floodwaters in Zhengzhou, China, on July 20, 2021. (Chinatopix via AP) |
China's central province of Henan has experienced a disastrous flood resulting from torrential rain falling in a short period of several days, equal to the amount of rain the province would normally receive throughout the course of a year. In the provincial capital Zhengzhou, a city of 12 million people some 650 kilometres from Beijing, bus service was halted and people were forced to spend the night at their office buildings.
"That's why many people took the subway, and the tragedy happened", said a resident of the city whose name was Guo, and who had opted to spend the night at his office. The tragedy he mentioned caused the death of 25 people at last count. Half of those people lost their lives in a subway line when flood waters rushed into the tunnel, entering the subway cars and passengers swiftly found themselves trapped in water rising progressively higher.
Roughly 100,000 people had to be evacuated in the city, which is an industrial and transport hub. Rail and road links were disrupted, dams and reservoirs swelled to danger levels leading thousands of troops from the People's Liberation Army to be dispatched to take part in the provincial rescue effort. Social media showed train commuters immersed chest-deep in water in the dark. One station appeared as a large brown pool.
Over 500 passengers were pulled to safety when one of the subway tunnels flooded. With electricity out, they had been trapped, unable to open doors or windows, trying desperately to keep their heads above water. Taller passengers helped shorter people survive by holding them up to gasp at the diminishing quality of air they gulped to survive.
Cities and towns built too close to the Yellow River, on floodplains that themselves proved inadequate to contain the massive overflow when 617.1 mm of rain fell in Zhengzhou, where the annual average stands at 640.8 mm. Three days of unrelenting rain realized a level seen only "once in a thousand years", according to the Zhengzhou weather bureau.
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| Due to the rain, the authorities halted bus services, as the vehicles are powered by electricity and many took the subways only to get trapped inside. |
In the city of Gongyi located like Zhengzhou on the banks of the Yellow River, there was a widespread collapse of homes and structures succumbing to the force of the floods. More rain is being forecast across the province for the rest of the week. The People's Liberation Army is helping with search and rescue.
The province itself is a logistics hub with a population of about 100 million. Train services have been suspended across the province and highways have been closed and flights delayed or cancelled. Food and water were needed for hundreds of people stranded on a train that had stopped beyond city limits of Zhengzhou two days earlier.
The sheer volume of the rainfall had caused a 20-metre breach in the Yihetan dam in the city of Luoyang, with expectations that the dam could collapse at any time.
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| Getty Images |
Labels: China, Flooding, Henan Province, Torrential Rain, Yellow River
posted by Pieface @ Friday, July 23, 2021
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