Two dead in New Jersey after heavy storm sends floodwaters gushing into New York city subway station
The intense rainfall over New Jersey and New York caused severe flooding in the region and sent water gushing into a subway train platform, causing delays.
Authorities have issued several flash flood warnings across the New York City metropolitan area.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat, urged citizens to "stay alert".
"We're not unique, but we're in one of these sort of high-humidity, high-temperature, high-storm-intensity patterns right now," he said.
The names of the two victims were not immediately released but local officials said the vehicle they were riding in was swept into a brook during the height of the storm.
"Emergency personnel responded quickly but tragically, both individuals were pronounced dead at the scene," according to a statement the city posted online.
The heavy rains also caused flash floods in south-central Pennsylvania on Monday night local time into early Tuesday, prompting road and public transport closures.
It was the second-highest 1-hour rainfall ever recorded in Central Park at more than 5 centimetres, surpassed only by the remnants of Hurricane Ida in 2021, according to local officials.
Janno Lieber, chair and chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, told ABC 7 in New York the city's sewer system got overwhelmed by the rain and backed up into the subway tunnels and to the stations.
In several cases, he said, the backup "popped a manhole", creating the dramatic "geyser" seen in some videos online.
"What happened last night is something that is, you know, a reality in our system," he said on live television.
"We've been working with the city of New York to try to get them to increase the capacity of the system at these key locations."
City officials said their venerable sewer system worked as well as it could, but it simply was not built to handle that much rain.
"Imagine putting a 2-litre bottle of water into a 1-litre bottle. Some of it's going to spill," Environmental Protection Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala said.
Mr Lieber said full service was restored to the subway, as well as commuter rails, after hundreds of people worked overnight to restore operations.
Flooding has proven to be a stubborn problem for New York's subway system, despite years and billions of dollars worth of efforts to waterproof it.
Reuters/AP
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