At 1:40 p.m. on Sunday, a flash flood disaster was triggered by a short period of heavy rainfall at the Shuangshimen Scenic Area in Weiyuan County, Dingxi City, Gansu Province, China. As of 9:15 p.m. that evening, 240 trapped people had been rescued, 10 of whom had died and 23 were injured.
A Beijing News reporter contacted one of the disaster’s survivors, Liu Quan (pseudonym), that evening. On the morning of July 26, a little after 11 a.m., Liu Quan and his family arrived at the Shuangshimen Scenic Area.
But just as Liu Quan finished setting up his canopy, it began to drizzle. A few minutes later, the rain intensified, accompanied by hail. He thought he could simply wait out the rain under the canopy, but unexpectedly, the downpour kept increasing. “The whole road was flooded.” There was a small creek at the camping site, which was normally very shallow and often played in by children, but with the rainfall, the water spread wider and wider, and the bridge over the creek was washed away.
Liu Quan recalled that from the time the rain started to the arrival of the flash flood, it was probably less than 20 minutes, leaving everyone with little time to react. Liu Quan and his family hurriedly moved to higher ground on a hillside to seek safety.
The rain lasted for about an hour, and even after it stopped, the floodwaters remained rapid. With no way through in any direction, he and his family “could neither go up nor down,” and their cell phones had no signal. He noticed that some children were swept away by the flood.
After being trapped for three or four hours, rescue workers finally arrived at the scene and used ropes to slowly help them down the mountain. When he finally stepped onto the ground, the floodwater and mud reached Liu Quan’s knees. “The water was so cold my whole knees hurt.”
In the parking area, about 50 to 60 cars had been washed into each other by the flood, their bodies badly deformed—“you couldn’t even tell they were cars.” The two cars Liu Quan’s family had driven were also gone. Fortunately, Liu Quan and his family were safe and had been relocated to a shelter in Weiyuan County.