Rescue teams help trapped residents in Zhuozhou, Hebei province escape flooded areas in the city on Tuesday afternoon. (Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn)
The publishing industry in Zhuozhou city, Hebei province has suffered a heavy loss due to floodwaters after days of downpours brought by Typhoon Doksuri, Nanfang Metropolis Daily reported on Wednesday.
Countless books were soaked as floodwaters poured relentlessly into the warehouses of many publishing houses and book-selling companies.
"The warehouse of our company located in a logistics park in Zhuozhou has flooded," a staff member of the book brand "Unread" told Nanfang Metropolis Daily on Tuesday. "We can't figure out how much our loss is currently."
The logistics park included nearly 100 book companies.
According to Book China, one of the earliest domestic online book sales platforms, some staff members used sandbags and wooden boards to protect their warehouses in Zhuozhou, but around 4 million books have been damaged by the flood.
Apart from these booksellers, there is also a large number of printing factories, some of which also suffered huge losses in the flood.
Hebei Wensheng Printing Co Ltd, with a registered capital of 20 million yuan, has a number of utility model patents for book printing equipment.
On Tuesday, the company sent online messages for help as the water had flooded to the second floor of the company's office building in Zhuozhou, trapping over 30 staff members.
"The water level continued to rise since Monday evening and water gradually flooded the second floor of our office building," said a female staff member surnamed Sun. "The whole factory has flooded and all machines, equipment, books and paper have been soaked."
According to data from local government, from 8 am Saturday to 11 am Tuesday, the average precipitation of the city reached 355.1 millimeters.
As of 10 am Tuesday, about 134,000 residents of Zhuozhou had been affected by flooding, data showed.
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