Death toll from Henan floods rises to 71, more rain expected
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Rescuers evacuating people from a flooded area in Xinxiang, China's central Henan province, on Sunday. Heavy rain that began on July 17 have hit almost 13 million people and damaged nearly 9,000 homes.
PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
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BEIJING • The death toll from floods in central China's Henan province has risen to 71, while a tribute at a subway station where 14 people died was sealed off in a sign of sensitivity to public criticism of the government's handling of the disaster.
Torrential downpours dumped a year's worth of rain in just three days last week on the hardest-hit city of Zhengzhou, flooding subway cars and trapping more than 500 commuters during rush hour last Tuesday.
Forecasters said yesterday that more heavy rain is expected as the remnants of Typhoon In-Fa pass through areas in Henan.
Also yesterday, the city government announced the names of those who perished in the subway, a rare attempt at transparency after people started leaving flowers at the entrance to the station.
Subway guards eventually blocked access to the floral tribute, but a video published by state-run West China Metropolis Daily showed a group of people pushing aside the yellow barricades on Monday night while chanting: "Let the spirits of those who died come back home!"
One of the victims, identified in the list by his last name Sha, was days short of his 34th birthday.
"Who would have thought that you were only one stop away from home, but you will never come back again," his wife wrote on China's Twitter-like Weibo.
Sha's wife, who declined to give her name, told Jimu news that she would sue the metro operator for negligence.
Foreign journalists covering the floods have been harassed online and on the ground. Reporters from AFP were forced to delete footage by residents and surrounded by dozens of men while reporting on a submerged traffic tunnel in Zhengzhou.
The Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) also issued a statement yesterday, noting how Henan's Communist Youth League had asked its 1.6 million followers on Chinese social media site Weibo to report the whereabouts of BBC Shanghai reporter Robin Brant, after he became the target of viral online harassment.
"The FCCC is disappointed and dismayed at the growing hostility against foreign media in China," it said.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
