Officials reported on Thursday that the death toll in central China’s catastrophic flash floods, which were driven by the worst rainfall in 1,000 years, has risen to 33, with eight people still missing.
According to the provincial disaster management agency, the heavy rain has affected approximately three million people in Henan province, and a total of 376,000 local residents have been moved to safe areas.
Rainwater has harmed over 215,200 hectares of crops, resulting in a direct economic loss of 1.22 billion yuan (USD 188.6 million), according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
The huge floods, which meteorologists have described as a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, have left Henan and its provincial capital Zhengzhou, a city of 12.6 million people, in apocalyptic scenes, with public streets and subway tunnels being inundated by rising waters.
When subway stations were flooded, twelve individuals were murdered and five others were injured. On Tuesday night, the victims died when their subway train was struck by swiftly rising floods. When a wall fell down, two individuals were killed.
Petrified passengers stuck on subway trains clung to handlebars frantically hoping for assistance as floods rose up to their necks in videos shared on Chinese social media.
