Because the city’s Line 1 and Line 2 were halted much earlier, many are blaming the late response of Line 5 employees for the tragedy.
According to Zhengzhou Metro’s Weibo account, emergency procedures were enacted on the morning of July 20, which involved dispatching emergency vehicles and rescuers to subway stations and safety points, as well as increasing patrol teams. While subway authorities called to halt Line 1 and Line 2 trains at 3:40pm, Line 5 stations were slow to respond. According to the official statement, all subway lines stopped at 6:42pm.
Weibo posts from trapped passengers calling for help began around 6pm. “The rainwater is rushing into the train, and we can’t open the doors. People are panicking,” read one post.
“I was in the last train car and saw the flood waters seeping under the doors. The conductor came to try and drive the train in reverse, only to find that the controls had seized after something sparked between the rail and the tunnel wall,” a passenger surnamed Wang told NewsChina.
According to Wang, his train stopped at Huanghe Station at about 4:50pm for more than 10 minutes. Before reaching Haitansi, one stop before the ill-fated Shakoulu Station, the train had stopped several other times. It was finally forced to stop operating less than one kilometer before Shakoulu because the rails were submerged in water.
The conductor tried to evacuate some of the passengers, but the rushing water hindered efforts. It took the first group of rescued passengers one hour to walk 200 meters on the emergency trackside pathway.
After the first group evacuated, the conductor closed the doors to stop the water. By 7:30pm, Weibo was full of distress messages from trapped passengers. Some said the water had risen from their feet to their chests within 30 minutes.
At about 9pm, the water level rose so high that people attempted to break the windows with fire extinguishers, umbrellas and even their keys.
Rescuers eventually broke the windows and doors from the outside. Wang recalled that his train stopped at about 7:10pm, 30 minutes after the time local transit officials claimed they had taken all the trains offline.
When asked why Line 5 trains were not stopped earlier, a director from the Zhengzhou Metro’s safety department told NewsChina on condition of anonymity that the subway was the commuters’ “only hope of getting home” in the storm.
“Line 5 is the only loop line in Zhengzhou. During extreme weather, Line 5 has to alleviate some of the above-ground road traffic and transport more passengers back home [than usual],” he said. “We had to hold out until we couldn’t,” he added.
Line 5 trains have six carriages and a capacity of 2,592 passengers, about 700 more than Line 1 and Line 2 trains. By the time it was stopped on July 20, Line 5 had serviced 374,200 passengers. Interviewed passengers told media that the streets were in gridlock.
“We have to follow protocol. Conductors cannot unilaterally stop trains. Neither can metro authorities. They can’t take trains offline without the government department’s approval,” another Line 5 employee who declined to reveal his name told NewsChina.