(Yicai) Aug. 14 -- Life is getting back to normal in Zhuozhou, a city in Hebei province that was badly hit by record rainfall earlier this month. Water and electricity supplies have been restored in most parts of the city but it will take some time for services such as meal deliveries to resume, a volunteer told Yicai.

Liu Shiqi, who works as a courier for Chinese takeout giant Meituan, was stuck at home for three days when the torrential downpours started, but he was fortunate in that his home was not damaged as it lies on high ground.

“We had no power for three days from July 31 and had to cook with gas,” Liu said. The water supply was not reconnected until Aug. 7. He bought bottled water to drink and cook with. His family did not have a shower for a week until the water supply was restored.

Liu volunteers his time from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day to help unload truckloads of water that are donated to the community. As of Aug. 11, some apartment complexes still did not have running water.

There are also a lot of volunteers from outside the city who are helping out. A team from the Didi Rescue Volunteers Team’s Taiyuan branch in northern Shanxi province helped rescue 298 people stranded by the floods and sent 14 truckloads of supplies from July 31 to Aug. 4.

Sleeping bags, cleansing materials and other supplies are being sent by Alibaba Group Holdings’ logistics arm Cainiao from Chengdu in southwestern Sichuan province across the province to Zhuozhou, the truck driver surnamed Luo said.

Cainiao has also linked arms with Hangzhou-based Alibaba’s e-marketplace Taobao to organize storage areas of more than 5,000 square meters to help out Zhuozhou’s book sellers who were particularly hard hit by the heavy rains after their warehouses were flooded.

Things are getting better though, Liu said. There are more takeout orders and most of his colleagues have returned to work. Some, though, are still repairing their electric scooters, he added.

Editor: Kim Taylor