Saturday's heavy rains and flooding have left many Beijing residents worried about how they might escape from a submerged car and prompted online sales of safety hammers.
Such concerns began to arise after a man found himself unable to escape from a car and died after the car became waterlogged under the Guangqumen Bridge in Beijing and died. The vehicle's automatic windows had ceased working under water, leading him to try in vain to break them.
To prevent such deaths, residents, police authorities, automobile companies and media have begun using the Internet to distribute information about techniques drivers can use to get out of such situations.
The Shanghai railway police posted a video on an official micro blog on Sunday showing how a person should break a vehicle window. By Tuesday, the video had been forwarded more than 2,400 times.
"If people are trapped in their cars, they should try to use safety hammers to break the edges of the cars' side windows, not the windshields," Wang Yibo, an officer with the Shanghai railway police, said on Tuesday.
"That glass (in a side window) is thinner and can be broken more easily."
Yang Qingyuan, an expert in escape training in Beijing, said such advice should only be heeded by people trapped in personal vehicles.
