China’s Henan province is bracing for heavier showers after severe flooding sparked large-scale evacuations and left at least 33 dead.
The death toll includes at least 12 people who were killed when water flooded subway cars in the provincial capital Zhengzhou. Eight remain missing, according to government figures.
Heavy rain is expected on Thursday in parts of Henan as well as neighboring Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing.
Rainfall in the area intensified since Tuesday, with Zhengzhou, a city of 10 million, receiving a year’s worth of rain in just three days. Across Henan, three million people have been affected and as many as 380,000 evacuated as of early Thursday.
The province is home to the world’s biggest production base for iPhones and a major centre for food production and heavy industry.
Pictures published by state media showed large sections of roads submerged in Zhengzhou, while videos on social media showed passengers stuck in flooded subway cars with water up to their shoulders and residents being pulled to safety with ropes from fast-moving floodwaters.
The deluge has, since Tuesday, brought the equivalent of more than eight months’ worth of the city’s average rainfall, and interrupted the operations of at least one global company with manufacturing operations there.
Nissan Motor said it temporarily halted production in Zhengzhou. SAIC Motor, China’s biggest carmaker, said logistics around its factory in Zhengzhou have been affected by the floods in the short term, but the plant had not been damaged.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry, which owns a huge iPhone production plant in Zhengzhou, said it had activated an emergency response plan but the flooding has had no direct effect on the facility.
Hon Hai’s plant receives components needed to assemble iPhones from global and domestic Chinese suppliers before shipping out the finished products. The flooding struck as the company is preparing to increase output before the launch of Apple’s latest devices towards the end of the year.
State broadcaster CCTV showed residents being rescued in rafts from flooded streets.
One emergency worker carried a baby; a man in an underpass sat on top of his half-submerged car.
The flooding in Henan may also affect China’s food supply. Henan accounts for about a quarter of the wheat harvest and is a major centre for frozen food production.
It's also the home of the world’s biggest pork processor WH Group, which acquired US meat production company Smithfield Food in 2013.
As of late Wednesday, more than 470,000 people and over 55,000 hectares of crops have been affected by the downpours, Xinhua News Agency said, adding the local government had deployed a 76,000-strong search and rescue team.
On Wednesday, rescue workers and authorities continued to work to prevent dam breaches, restore lost power and pump out submerged petrol stations.
China’s military blasted a dam to release floodwaters threatening one of its most heavily populated provinces.
The operation late on Tuesday in the city of Luoyang came after at least 25 people died in Zhengzhou.
President Xi Jinping urged officials to step up disaster relief measures, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
About 260 flights have been cancelled. Inbound flights to Zhengzhou have also been suspended.
Zhengzhou recorded 457.5 millimetres of rain in the 24 hours up to 5pm on Tuesday, the highest since records began for the city of more than 10 million people, Xinhua reported.
That included a record 201.9mm in an hour, from 4pm to 5pm, a record for mainland China. Zhengzhou typically receives average annual precipitation of about 640.8mm.
The record rainfall came shortly after key Chinese cities said homes and factories faced new power failures as historic demand and supply shortages strain energy grids.
To the north of Zhengzhou, the famed Shaolin Temple, known for its Buddhist monks’ mastery of martial arts, was also badly hit.
China experiences regular flooding in summer months, but the growth of cities and conversion of farmland into subdivisions have increased such events.
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
Directed by: Craig Gillespie
Starring: Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, Joel Fry
4/5
INDIA SQUAD
Virat Kohli (capt), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Vijay Shankar, MS Dhoni (wk), Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Initial investment: Undisclosed
Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.
It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.
Uber on,
Dara
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Fixtures
Friday Leganes v Alaves, 10.15pm; Valencia v Las Palmas, 12.15am
Saturday Celta Vigo v Real Sociedad, 8.15pm; Girona v Atletico Madrid, 10.15pm; Sevilla v Espanyol, 12.15am
Sunday Athletic Bilbao v Getafe, 8.15am; Barcelona v Real Betis, 10.15pm; Deportivo v Real Madrid, 12.15am
Monday Levante v Villarreal, 10.15pm; Malaga v Eibar, midnight
Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
The National in Davos
We are bringing you the inside story from the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, a gathering of hundreds of world leaders, top executives and billionaires.
