On Tuesday (20), part of the city’s flood protection system collapsed Heavy rain The stations began to flood.

More than 500 people were rescued, local officials said. The video shared on social media shows some people having water near their necks; The other depicts an electric current spreading across the platforms.

Survivors reported on social networks that water was beginning to enter through cracks in the car’s doors, rising slowly “from our heels to our knees, until it reached our necks”.

“Everyone who built it climbed into the train seats,” a woman wrote on a Weibo platform similar to Twitter.

The children had the help of their parents, who raised them above the water level and supported themselves for anything that would serve as a shield for others. Half an hour later, in the opinion of one passenger, it was “hard to breathe”.

The line was ordered to stop service at 6:10 pm local time (EDT at 7:10 am), Zhengzhou officials said in a statement to rescue passengers. In addition to 12 deaths, five people were injured.

On the surface, roads turn into rivers, and water quickly drags cars and debris, endangering the lives of pedestrians.

Across the province, the number of victims of the recent heavy rains has risen to 25. More than 200,000 people were forced to flee their homes. The cancellation of flights and train journeys has severely affected the transport system.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has said the storm caused significant casualties and property damage.

‘No water, no electricity, no internet’

In Zhengzhou, the rainfall in the last days is equal to the average observed throughout the year.

The pictures of the subway in Shenzhou were not just moments of disappointment. Elsewhere in the city, children had to be rescued from a day care center that was submerged in water. Government television channels showed students being transferred to plastic containers.

A statement from the Zhengzhou Municipal Party Committee on the Webo social network said that the hospital at Zhengzhou University had a power outage on Tuesday night. About 600 critically ill patients had to be transferred to another health unit.

Liu, 27, told the BBC in China that he had no water, electricity or internet. “I have never seen so much rain in my life,” he added.

The damage was not limited to Shenzhou. Local authorities said a 20-meter crack had fallen in a dam in Luoyang City in the rain. Army officers were sent to the area to control the situation. A military statement warned that the structure could collapse at any time.

A user on social media said that Sishui city residents were trapped on the roof due to the flooding. “We don’t know how to swim. The whole village is being washed away,” he wrote.

What caused the flood?

China’s Meteorological Agency said heavy rains had been falling in Henan province since Saturday. With 624mm of rain on Tuesday, Zhengzhou broke a historic record – one-third between 4 and 5 p.m.

According to the Met Office, the area is expected to witness thunderstorms and storms until Thursday (22).

Floods can be caused by a variety of factors, but the heat of the atmosphere caused by climate change increases the risk of extreme events such as storms.

Henan Province is located on the banks of the Yellow River, the second largest river in the country. Thus, the area passes through a river network and, therefore, the risk of flooding is very high. The capital, Zhengzhou, with a population of about 12 million, is on the Yellow Coast.

In the coming decades, China has built several dams in the Yellow River basin. The BBC’s China correspondent Stephen McDonnell said scientists had previously warned that climate change in a region prone to flooding would exacerbate the problems.

The connection between the rivers and the lakes was severed and the floodplains that absorbed most of the area’s annual summer rainfall were isolated.