A LETHAL combination of droughts and floods is wreaking havoc across the world’s most populous nation, as rain-triggered floods in southwest China killed 21 people and left 37 missing, and damaged roads, bridges and thousands of homes.
After weeks of drought, the flooding began last weekend. The waters toppled 800 houses and damaged nearly 5,000, while 50 square miles of farmland were under water.
For weeks China has been beleaguered by drought, and there have been fears that crops and livestock were in danger because of the extreme weather conditions.
Parts of China along the Yangtze river basin and nearby have been enduring their worst drought in 50 years or more, with rainfall 40-60 per cent less than normal over recent months, damaging crops and cutting power from hydroelectric dams.
The flooding destroyed roads and bridges and washed away more than 500 vehicles, as well as cutting off water, power and telecoms services in the Guizhou district of Wangmo, which has a population of eight million.
Drought-hit provinces will be “basically relieved from the effects of the drought this month” as the rainy season begins, Zheng Guoguang, head of the China Meteorological Administration, had said.
“Local authorities should not slacken their efforts to fight the drought, as water levels remain low in many of central China’s major lakes, rivers and reservoirs,” he told the Xinhua news agency.
He warned that despite the downpour, water levels remained low in many of central China’s major lakes, rivers and reservoirs.
Then the dreadful weather all over the country took on a new dimension, as fears of being parched by months of drought were transformed into horror of inundation by some of the worst downpours in living memory.
The Chinese had been preparing to celebrate the newly instituted Dragon Boat Festival, which began yesterday.
Levels on the Miluo river were a lot lower than last year’s recorded levels. The river’s dragon boat race risked being cancelled as a result, according to Huang Songbai, deputy head of the publicity department of the Communist Party of China Committee of Miluo.
Heavy rains were expected to lash regions near the southern end of the Yangtze river in coming days, China’s top meteorological authority said in a statement.
Heavy rainfall has already caused disruption in the central and eastern provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi and Guizhou. All of these provinces have been hit hard by a blistering dry spell in recent months. Jiangsu received only about 3mm average rainfall, leaving parts of it still parched. About 6,000 students had to stay at home yesterday, as their four schools were rendered inaccessible by water, the county’s education chief Yan Tie told Xinhua.
All of the 21 deaths came in the Wangmo district of Guizhou, and 31 people were still missing, the Xinhua news agency reported, citing Nong Wenhai, a deputy governor of Wangmo. Another person was missing in the province’s Luodian county.
The dramatic change from drought to flood has caused regions along the lower and middle reaches of the Yangtze to gear up for even more torrential downpours.
The drought in the central province of Hunan has led to drinking-water shortages in the city of Miluo, with 78,000 people affected. Rice crops and fish farms have suffered because of the drought. Torrential rains in the past few days have affected 1.22 million people in four cities and prefectures in the central province of Hunan, with 27,700 people temporarily relocated, according to the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters.
Dragon boat racing is a traditional pastime along this stretch, along with cooking zongzi (a rice-based snack), and is one of the most important parts of the Dragon Boat Festival, held to pay homage to poet Qu Yuan, who drowned himself in the Miluo in 278BC after hearing that the army of the powerful state of Qin had occupied the capital city of Chu. He hoped his suicide would convince the king to revitalise their kingdom.