-- Companies, social forces and many seemingly unrelated individuals have joined China's massive rescue and relief efforts after a record rainstorm left 33 dead and eight missing in Henan Province.

-- From a hairdresser in a rescuer's helmet to cinema staff sheltering stranded pedestrians in screening halls, ordinary Chinese are expressing solidarity with the hard-hit city of Zhengzhou in their own ways.

-- Donations and rescuer teams are also pouring in from other parts of the country in a nationwide mobilization.

by Xinhua writers Yao Yuan, Zhai Zhuo, Liu Jinhui and Liu Fangqiang

ZHENGZHOU, July 22  -- After a record rainstorm ravaged central China's Henan Province, Zhou Jing, a resident in neighboring Anhui Province, lost contact with her longtime hairdresser.

Text messages and phone calls went unanswered, which never happened in the past, Zhou said. Only later did she know that the barber had rushed to Henan in his second identity: a professional rescuer.

The barber, Yu Tao, is a member of the Blue Sky Rescue Team in Hefei, capital of Anhui. He said his team, a non-governmental organization, assembled overnight and rushed to Henan in the wee hours of Wednesday after torrential rains unleashed deadly floods there.

On China's popular microblogging site Sina Weibo, Zhou heartily praised her barber for "dropping his scissors to save lives," one of the many messages showing solidarity with the flood-hit Henan.