beijing at least 13 people were killed and over a lakh evacuated in chinas central henan province hit by the heaviest rainfall in 1000 years prompting president xi jinping on wednesday to deploy the army to rescue those trapped in inundated subways hotels and public places amid fears of collapse of a dam posing flood risk to the provincial capitalthe massive floods described by meteorologists as a onceinalifetime event has resulted in apocalyptic scenes in the provincial capital zhengzhou a metropolis of 126 million with its public avenues and subway tunnels getting submerged with surging watersxi ordered the deployment of the peoples liberation army pla and said that authorities at all levels must give top priority to ensuring peoples safety and property as massive floods ravaged the province and zhengzhou citythe peoples liberation army central theatre command urgently dispatched troops to a county in rainhit henan where a dam is under threat of collapse due to serious damage caused by the rains staterun xinhua news agency reportedthe pla said on its social media account on sina weibo chinas twitterlike social media platform saying that a 20meterlong crevasse had appeared in the dam in yichuan county of henan province and could collapse any timevideos posted on the chinese social media showed petrified passengers trapped in subway trains clinging on to safety bars desperately waiting for help as floodwaters raised up to their necks it was not immediately known what happened to their fateofficial media released videos of rescue workers helping people stuck in subway tunnels to safetyvideos showed people trying to wade through floods in the downtown of the city while scores of cars and other vehicles washed away some videos also showed people falling into the massive caveins of the roadsrainwater poured into the subway tunnel of the citys line five trapping an unknown number of passengers aboard a subway trainthe downtown area of zhengzhou received an average precipitation of 4575 mm within 24 hours on tuesday the highest daily rainfall since the weather record began xinhua news agency reportedhong kongbased south china morning post reported 13 deaths in the floods so far while over one lakh people have been evacuatedhenan province is home to many cultural sites and a major base for industry and agriculture reports said that shaolin temple known for its buddhist monks mastery of martial arts was also severely hit by floodsheavy waterlogging has led to the virtual paralysis of the citys road traffic over 80 bus lines have been suspended more than 100 temporarily detoured and the subway service has also been temporarily suspendedpolice officers firefighters and workers from the local subdistrict have arrived at the site for the rescue operation the report saidthe water level inside the subway carriage is receding and the passengers are temporarily safe it saidmore than 160 train services were stopped at zhengzhoudong railway stationthe airport in zhengzhou cancelled 260 flights into and out of the city and local railway authorities also halted or delayed some trainsaffected by the rainstorms