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Crews from China Mobile in Anyang, a seriously flooded city in Henan, worked hard to repair a base station after days of heavy rain caused widespread power cuts in the city and affected some telecommunication stations. Photo: Li Hao/GT
After being hit by four days of unprecedented torrential rain, the city of Zhengzhou, in Central China’s Henan Province, suffered from an unexpected disruption of communications and Internet which almost collapsed the city of 12.6 million people who live in the digital era.
Heavy rains and floods in the city knocked out communication stations and disrupted internet networks, hampering efforts to communicate with families trapped in the rain and preventing first responders from connecting with people in need.
Precipitation in Zhengzhou from July 17 to July 20 reached 617.1 millimeters with hourly and daily precipitation breaking 60-year records, according to media reports. Unprecedented rains nearly knocked the city’s “radar” off.
The city has devoted the largest amount of emergency repair resources in a race to restore communications as it battled the floods.
Paralyzed telecommunications disrupted the city’s order
The Global Times reporters started searching for a mobile phone signal, just as they arrived in the seriously flooded city of Zhengzhou, on July 21. Most of the time, the reporters struggled without any mobile signal or internet connection.
Many areas of Zhengzhou did not have electricity. Most of the shops along the street were closed and those who had some fresh products, like fish or milk, were selling at discount prices because they could not be refrigerated. Shopkeepers had to bring back spring scales they had not used for many years but many could not pay as cash has been out of Chinese daily life for long time. Alipay and WeChat, the most popular electronic payment platforms, were offline. Many banks are still closed because of power outages.
If you saw youngsters crowded in a certain area along the street holding a phone, it certainly meant that was “a digital oasis” with 4G web signal while the rest area was a “blackout desert.”
Many young people were unaware of their dependence on signals and did not realize until that moment to what extent their daily life was digitalized.
The Global Times learned that more than 80 percent of local taxis are electric vehicles but most of them were unable to operate normally because many energy banks along the streets were plunged in waist-deep water. Public transport was shut down due to safety concerns and the whole city was on the verge of a traffic paralysis.
There was also chaos at some intersections as drivers who rely on online maps became confused and many volunteered to pick up vulnerable people trapped in deep water.
The digital breakdown also made rescue efforts more challenging in an unpredictably way. The Global Times joined the non-governmental organization “Endian” rescue team in the early hours of July 22 to attempt the rescue of more than 1,000 students trapped in a school for three nights without food and electricity. It took dozens of attempts to make a call to connect with the students.
Due to the inability to quickly pinpoint the specific location and situation of the trapped students through the internet and telecommunications, rescue workers had to send out two teams to evaluate the situation and then get back to headquarters to formulate the rescue plan. Their efficiency was largely dragged and the rescue timeline, which was supposed to take about five hours, prolonged to nearly 10 hours, the head of the rescue team surnamed Feng told the Global Times.
Rushing to repair
According to data from the Electric Power of Henan shared with the Global Times, a total of 775,000 households in Zhengzhou were affected by the power outage caused by the record downpours.
After the disaster, the Electric Power of Henan quickly initiated the highest level of emergency response. The State Grid Corporation of China deployed more than 11,200 technicians, 358 emergency generators, and all kinds of power grid supplies and equipment from 25 provincial power companies were rushed to Zhengzhou overnight to assist post-disaster rescue works.
As of Wednesday, power had been restored to 97.87 percent of the province.
Power and telecommunications were restored simultaneously. As of July 23, a total of 61,900 base stations were damaged by the heavy rains but 44,300 were already back online across the province. Among the 3,359 optical cables that were damaged, with a length of 3,500 kilometers, 1,599 have been repaired. In Zhengzhou, 35,200 base stations were damaged by floods with 26,900 already back online.
Satellite communication vehicles and emergency communication vehicles are also distributed on some of the main roads to give temporary connection in the capital.
Crews from China Mobile in Anyang, another seriously flooded city in Henan, worked hard against the clock late night on July 22 to repair a base station after days of heavy rains caused widespread power cuts in the city and affected some telecommunication stations when the Global Times visited.
The shutdown of the telecommunication station impacted normal operations of the meteorological bureau located nearby, making it more difficult to follow disaster relief work. Crews already hooked up generators to the base stations with a capacity of lasting at least five hours while work was underway to restore power supply.
The crew leader surnamed Gao told the Global Times that the breakdown of the communication network was mainly caused by power outage or equipment glitches due to the downpours.
However, some communication equipment was also shut down because of the risk of electric shock, Gao said.
Although the local communication stations already have measures in place to prevent flooding, like raised exterior walls to keep out water, the torrential rain that hit Henan was beyond its emergency response capacity. The repair works went non-stop throughout the night.
The Wing Loong unmanned aerial vehicle also showed up to assist in Mihe county, Henan Province, and help local residents reconnect with each other. Thanks to the aid provided by the Chinese manufacturer of UAV, some units were dispatched last week to hover above the region.
Widely known as an armed reconnaissance drone for military purposes, the Wing Loong is also an ideal choice in civilian missions like disaster relief, serving as an aerial communications relay platform, experts said.
By midday Wednesday, all base stations in Zhengzhou had been restored, except for some that were submerged in the water and communication services were back to normal.
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