China tends to prioritize protection of cities - “more populous and economically important regions,” Ma said - at the cost of villagers, mostly farmers or migrant workers. The choice of where to let waters out and whom to flood highlights inequalities. The Three Gorges Dam in particular has been touted by the Chinese government as a symbol of national prestige, despite controversies over the mass displacement, environmental destruction, pollution, landslides and earthquake risks it has caused. Those chased from their homes also speak of mismanaged flood systems, lack of government accountability and unequal treatment of the rural poor, who bear most of the flood burden. China’s overreliance on dams, excessive construction in low-lying areas, land reclamation in wetlands and lakes, and cities built with poor drainage systems have all exacerbated flood damage. The flooding, however, is directly linked to man-made problems. The system is abnormally strong this year, said Liu Junyan, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace East Asia, but it is unclear whether it is caused by climate change. The heavy storms over the Yangtze River basin are the result of a western Pacific subtropical high, a pressure system that every summer carries warm air from south to north. With torrential rains, he added, the amount of water concentrated in each reservoir poses a risk of serious damage, even in small dams. “These flood control engineering projects are not a panacea,” said Ma Jun, director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs. Many were built in the 1950s and ’60s and suffer from poor maintenance.
On the same day, more than 16,000 people were trapped in Guzhen town in the same province as the waters surged 10 feet high and broke through levees.įears are intensifying over the gargantuan Three Gorges Dam, where the reservoir has risen 50 feet above the warning level, to its highest point since the dam was completed in 2006.Ĭhina has more than 98,000 dams, according to the Ministry of Water Resources, more than any other nation. Last week, the government blasted open a dam in Anhui. Death tolls and battered homes are fewer than in previous years, but displacement and economic loss are far higher.Ĭhina’s dams - its primary guard against floods - are coming into question as they face increasing strain. The surging waters have destroyed 41,000 houses and damaged 368,000 more, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management.
The floods have so far affected more than 54 million people, including 3.7 million displaced and 158 people dead or missing. But this year is the worst in decades, with 433 rivers surging above flood control levels since June, 33 of them setting records. Qiao spoke as many rural residents of the Yangtze River floodplains do, accustomed to swelling waters whenever big rains hit. “We have to think big-picture, think of the greater good,” said the farmer identified as Qiao in a recent local news video from Anhui province. He was one of tens of thousands of villagers whose homes and fields were about to be engulfed as a dam gushed open to release rising waters. so he could harvest his crops before the floods came. It said more than 600 patients were being transferred to other hospitals.The white-haired farmer ran barefoot to his fields at 2 a.m. Sections of 26 highways were closed due to the rain, the Transport Ministry said on its social media account.Ī blackout shut down ventilators at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, forcing staff to use hand-pumped airbags to help patients breathe, according to the city's Communist Party committee. Trains halted, sections of highways closedĪt least 10 trains carrying about 10,000 passengers were halted, including three for more than 40 hours, according to Caixin, a business news magazine. Transport and working life have been disrupted throughout the province, with torrents of rain turning streets into rapidly flowing rivers, washing away cars and rising into people's homes.
(Chinatopix)įootage posted on Twitter by news site The Paper showed subway passengers standing in chest-high muddy brown water as torrents raged in the tunnel outside. People tried to walk and bike through the flooded streets.
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