First the sky darkened.Then came the ___1___—for three straight days.

Inside her ___2___in Zhengzhou,the capital city of central Henan province.Wang Ana ___3___the doors with sand bags in an effort to stop water from sweeping in.When it didn’t work,she shouldered her son and ___4___made it home through the chest-deep floodwater.

But those ___5___inside the mile-long Jingguang traffic tunnel（隧道）,which was just a few hundred feet north of Wang’s restaurant,were less ___6___.Nearly 200 cars inside became stuck in several feet of water.At least two passengers never made it out.

“I felt incredibly ___7___,”Wu Qiang.a driver who was briefly stuck in the tunnel,told Chinese media later.He and two other passengers ___8___by climbing through their vehicles’roofs and ___9___the pipes fixed to the ceiling of the tunnel.

Thirteen people were also killed in a rain-filled subway line.Some passengers ___10___desperate goodbye videos for their loved ones while they stood in chest-high water inside the subway cars waiting for rescuers.

Rescuers,near and far,were rushing to help even when the storm was still pounding the city.___11___the news on TV from his home in Xi’an,a city about 300 miles away,Wu Chao ___12___loaded his car with rescue equipment.By the next morning,he joined the massive rescue operation led by both the military as well as volunteers to bring the people to temporary rescue centers and send much-needed food and water to the ___13___communities.

“The water was so deep in some places that it was impossible for machinery to ___14___them,so some of us jumped into the flood without a second ___15___,”he said.