“The worst thing was not the water, but the fact that there was less and less oxygen in the carriage”. Flooding in the Chinese subway

Kremlin relations

In the administrative center of the Chinese province of Henan, Zhengzhou, a subway tunnel was flooded.  Dozens of people were injured.  At least 25 people died.  In today’s article, we’ll take a closer look at what happened.

On the evening of July 20, water seeped into a tunnel on the fifth metro line. The movement of trains was immediately stopped, but the passengers in the cars were cut off. The strongest showers that overtook the central part of the Celestial Empire were to blame.  The administrative center of Zhengzhou was hit hardest.  According to forecasts of meteorological stations, precipitation will last until this evening.  

photo: Yandex

 One of the eyewitnesses to the events wrote the following on her Weibo page:

“Water started pouring into the car, but there was not much of it.  We just had to stand and wait.  After some time, the metro staff began to evacuate us from the car, but almost immediately we were told to return, because there was water everywhere ahead. After all the passengers returned to the carriage, the water had already reached the waist, meanwhile, in the tunnel, water continued to arrive and pour into the carriage through the cracks in the door. We stood on the seats, and the water reached our chest, I was scared. But the worst thing was not the water, but the fact that there was less and less oxygen in the carriage.”

photo: Yandex

According to her, when the water had already reached half of the carriage and it was necessary to stand already on the seats, the steps of rescuers were heard on the roof of the carriage. They knocked out the windows of the car from all sides, so air slowly began to flow into the car. 500 people were evacuated.