The local water and electricity had been cut off, but some residents could be seen in their homes, pouring water from their second-story windows. “If not, I’ll have to go back to work (in Fujian).”Īt present, however, several Chinese regions have yet to establish flood insurance mechanisms, due to a lack of interest among insurers and local residents, according to Cheng.īack in Youdunjie, however, people were focusing on more immediate concerns. “If the government can offer some subsidies, I can farm next year,” said Gao, sitting in her mud-stained living room, posters of Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping hanging above her. She’d invested 200,000 yuan to start a rice farm, hoping to save up money to provide for her ailing son. Gao Huazhen, 53, told Sixth Tone she’d recently returned to Xiaoyang after working for three decades in the garment workshops of eastern China’s Fujian province. When the floodwater was discharged, many of them lost their crops - and their livelihoods. In Xiaoyang, a village in nearby Duchang County, hundreds of villagers were moved into a local school in the hours before the gates were opened. The move lowered the water levels on Poyang Lake by up to 30 centimeters, but it also left villages near the levees inundated. Local governments opened the water gates along 185 levees, releasing an estimated 2.4 billion cubic meters of floodwater. “Our capital reserves are limited … The lower-level governments generally have few ways of generating income by themselves.” “It depends on central government policy,” said Fang, the town’s mayor. The local government offered accommodation and meals for displaced villagers, officials told Sixth Tone, but further financial support would require funding from national-level authorities. In Youdunjie, local residents are calling on the government to provide support to those affected by the floods.
Lower-income provinces not only have smaller budgets for investing in flood-control projects they often also struggle to implement emergency measures due to a shortage of working-age people, according to Cheng.Ĭhina’s rapid urbanization over recent decades has led to millions of people migrating from rural areas into the country’s major cities, leaving lower-income areas less able to maintain levees and conduct rescue missions. “Disasters now have a greater impact than in the past, which has widened the contradiction in regional development,” said Cheng Xiaotao, a member of the Expert Committee of the National Commission for Disaster Reduction. Regional inequality has also emerged as a barrier to flood-control efforts, leaving people in lower-income provinces like Jiangxi more exposed than those in wealthier regions. “It’s not something that can be accomplished in a short time.” “There are thousands of small- and medium-sized rivers,” said Ran. As more and more water penetrated the structure, Huang and his colleagues ran back to their homes to help their children and elderly relatives flee to higher ground.Īccording to Fang Xuping, mayor of Youdunjie Town, the floods weren’t only caused by the heavy rain, but also by large volumes of floodwater discharging in upstream Anhui province, which flowed down into Jiangxi and further raised local water levels. Huang Qiusheng, a 60-year-old Youdunjie resident, was part of a team of volunteers trying to shore up the levee with sandbags on July 8, when it became clear it would be impossible to hold back the floods. Although the town reinforced its levees as recently as 2012 at a cost of 29 million yuan, the rising water breached the structures in early July, leading to five villages being inundated. Youdunjie - located near a local river that feeds into Poyang Lake - is a case in point. This summer has made clear, however, that some areas of the country - especially less wealthy regions bordering smaller rivers - remain “weak links” during times of crisis, experts told Sixth Tone.
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In an era of climate change, extreme weather events are likely to become evermore common.Ĭhina’s flood-control authorities have been studying how to adapt to climate change, but it’s still difficult to predict how future changes will impact specific regions, according to Ran Qihua, director of Zhejiang University’s Institute of Hydrology and Water Resources Engineering. For local residents and policymakers alike, the question is how towns like Youdunjie can protect themselves from megafloods like this in the future.
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