XINXIANG, China — First the sky darkened. Then came the rain — for three straight days.
Inside her restaurant, Wang Ana barricaded the doors in an effort to stop water from seeping in. When that didn’t work, she grabbed her young son and a broom handle, using it to steady the two of them as they waded through the chin-high floodwaters back home.
“We could only hold on to each other,” says Wang, a resident of Zhengzhou, the capital city of central Henan province and home to approximately 12 million people.
Starting last Tuesday, storms dropped the equivalent of one year’s worth of water on the city in a 72 hour period before moving northward, flooding large swathes of Henan province in China. Authorities say the rains have displaced more than a million people and at least 63 people dead in what should have been – in theory –Once in a thousand year floods.
Much like certain parts of Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, Henan has been deluged by unusually slow-moving rain storms this past week, making painfully clear how climate change can exacerbate seasonal rains.
The extreme weather could also force city planners to adapt urban infrastructure which, once designed for convenience, become deadly underwater traps during the storms.
