China’s flood has killed hundreds and tested Three Gorges Dam


After the coronavirus pandemic was largely brought under control, China’s leaders are now struggling with an escalation of crippling floods that have killed hundreds of people and displaced millions across the central and southwestern parts of the country.

The Yangtze River flooding peaked again this week, in Sichuan Province and the sprawling metropolis of Chongqing, while the Three Gorges Dam, 280 kilometers downstream, reached its highest level since it began flooding in 2003.

This year’s flood did not occur as a single natural disaster, with an enormous loss of life and property, but rather as a slow, merciless series of smaller ones, whose combined toll has gradually built up, even as official reports have focused on the relief effort. the government.

“The Chinese nation has been fighting natural disasters for thousands of years and gaining valuable experience,” the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, said on Tuesday after a visit to Anhui, another flooded province downstream of the Three Gorges Dam. “We have to keep fighting.”

Mr. Xi called the efforts of China’s disaster relief “a practical test of our army’s leadership and command system.” He met with relatives of three people who died in fighting the floods, and on Wednesday he set up officers from the People’s Liberation Army and the People’s Armed Police, who have been involved in the relief effort.

Public appearances in flooded areas by Mr Xi and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang underscored the seriousness of the crisis, which has dealt another blow to an economy still struggling to recover from the crisis. pandemic.

Mr. Li visited Chongqing, where the Yangtze swept across its banks for the fifth time this year and reached historic highs on Thursday afternoon in 1981. Leaders have tried to convince people that the government did everything it could, but some may doubt.

“I believe the Chinese public will question Beijing about this year’s persistent natural disasters and man-made disasters, and even China’s governance model and its effectiveness,” said Wu Qiang, an independent political analyst in Beijing.

One Chongqing resident, in a video of the flood there circulating on a popular social media platform, said: “The losses have been heavy for many companies, which fought the pandemic in the first half of the year and flooded in the second half. “

The floods had already caused at least $ 26 billion in economic losses this week. At a briefing in Beijing last week, Zhou Xuewen, the secretary general of China’s flood headquarters, said at least 63 million people had been affected and 54,000 homes destroyed. At least 219 people have died or disappeared, he said.

In Sichuan on Friday, a landslide caused by heavy rains killed at least six other people in a village near Ya’an. Another in the same region left five people missing.

Heavy rains are normal in southern China during the summer, but this year has fallen harder and longer than usual, and has affected crops and entire communities in the last two months. Perhaps not coincidentally, Mr Xi announced a campaign for food waste against the backdrop of the flood, although officials have insisted there is no impending food crisis.

The heavy rains this year have sparked a debate over the Three Gorges Dam, a massive project launched in 1994 that forced the relocation of more than a million people, exaggerated entire communities and severely damaged the surrounding environment.

The flow of water in the dam’s reservoir reached 75 million liters per second, breaking a record 61 million liters just set last month, according to a statement from the Ministry of Water Resources. Although officials said the dam was not in danger, the water level approached maximum capacity.

Since the floods began in June, officials have repeatedly offered assurances that the dam could withstand what was once called flooding. Some reports in state media have gone further, claiming that the dam had almost certainly prevented an even worse flooding in major cities downstream, including Wuhan, where the Covid-19 pandemic began.

On Friday, officials announced that the stream in the Three Gorges Dam had demanded something, although they remained on the alert. “The pressure of flood control on the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River has diminished,” Xinhua News Agency reported.

China’s other major waterway, the Yellow River, has also experienced more flooding. The Ministry of Water Resources said in a statement that in Shaanxi province on Friday the river has reached its highest level since 1997. Nearly 700 smaller rivers and tributaries have also been flooded, punishing older dams and rivers.

The floods have threatened some of the country’s most famous landmarks. In Sichuan, floodwaters rose to the base of the Leshan Giant Buddha, a 1,200-year-old sculpture carved from the mountainside, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In Chongqing, the floods consumed Ciqikou, an ancient trading port on riverbanks near where the Jialing River merges with the Yangtze. Xinhua reported that the waters reached the third story of some buildings on the steep riverbank. Photos showed brown water underlying large areas of the city’s waterfront, including Hongyadong, an 11-story structure that is a popular tourist destination.

The structure has been closed since Tuesday and workers have removed the mud reaching its lower levels.

“It’s too scary how the water came up,” said the manager of a restaurant there, who would only give her last name, Zhang, by phone. “Humanity is unimportant in the face of disaster.”

Claire Fu contributed research.