Chinese floods Over 50,000 evacuted as floods hit northeast China

bhramos

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SHANGHAI, Aug 21 (Reuters) - More than 50,000 people have so far been evacuated from a city in northeastern China after flooding from a rain-swollen river that also borders North Korea, the official Xinhua News Agency said on Saturday.
Homes and roads in Dandong city have been submerged under the water after the Yalu River, which runs between China and North Korea, broke its banks, Xinhua reported.
Heavy rain began pounding the area from early Friday cutting off some power and communication lines.
China's National Meteorological Center also warned on Saturday that torrential rains will hit China's northeastern, central and southwestern regions in the next 24 hours.
On Tuesday, China's state media reported that heavy rains in western China have killed at least another 51 people, adding to the more than 2,000 people who have died in flooding and landslides nationwide so far this year.
The Yalu is one of two main rivers dividing China from diplomatically isolated North Korea.
The reclusive state had yet to announce details of damage caused by the recent rains, although a report from the official KCNA news agency said parts of the country had been struck by record rainfall [nTOE673087] (Reporting by Melanie Lee, editing by Miral Fahmy)

Reuters AlertNet - Over 50,000 evacuted as floods hit northeast China
 

bhramos

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China flood madness: Trains plunge into rivers, people trapped in mid-waters

 
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bhramos

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Train Drama: Video of carriges falling from bridge into flooded river

 
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bhramos

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Collapsed bridge fix after China floods

 
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Param

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Looks like God is punishing China & Pakistan at the same time.
 

Tshering22

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What's happening to Asia these days guys? Floods in Pakistan, floods in Leh in India then landslides that happened few days back in China and now again floods! Nature doesn't seem to be pleased with Asian actions recently.
 

Rebelkid

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What's happening to Asia these days guys? Floods in Pakistan, floods in Leh in India then landslides that happened few days back in China and now again floods! Nature doesn't seem to be pleased with Asian actions recently.
We pissed of Nature..thats what....there is also and 3000ft deep and 22 mile wide oil in gulf of Mexico..

Its pouring like hell in Bangalore for past few hours now :\
 
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bhramos

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We pissed of Nature..thats what....there is also and 3000ft deep and 22 mile wide oil in gulf of Mexico..

Its pouring like hell in Bangalore for past few hours now :\
This is all due Global Warming.........
In Hinduism its compared with Kaliyug Anth.
In this period all the all the Five forces of nature like Pruthvi, Water, Air, Fire, Akash will fight for its existence. so then the Rainy season will have heavy rains, Summer will have more hot then ever. winters will be more cold then ever....... this is a real told in 2000BC's approx, its true, but i wont discuss all its facts here..... but we are seeing its result today in World.
 

Param

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This is all due Global Warming.........
In Hinduism its compared with Kaliyug Anth.
In this period all the all the Five forces of nature like Pruthvi, Water, Air, Fire, Akash will fight for its existence. so then the Rainy season will have heavy rains, Summer will have more hot then ever. winters will be more cold then ever....... this is a real told in 2000BC's approx, its true, but i wont discuss all its facts here..... but we are seeing its result today in World.
Actually such phenomenon has happened a number of times in the past throughout our planets history.
 

bhramos

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Actually such phenomenon has happened a number of times in the past throughout our planets history.
So next year we will open same thread and they will be asking for funds and aids from the world and UN.........
Its global warming,
always Life and History repeats as they are cycle . definatly it will repeat........
 

bhramos

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China's flood control authority urges increased efforts fighting Yalu River floods

BEIJING, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- China's flood control authority Saturday urged more efforts to battle flooding in areas along the Yalu River in northeast China's Liaoning Province, to ensure the safety of local residents.
The Office of National State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters has required relevant departments to focus on the prevention of landslides.

The office dispatched a work team to Liaoning Saturday to assist flood-control efforts.

As of 7 a.m. Saturday, three people were missing and about 51,000 people had been evacuated, after the swollen Yalu River flooded parts of Dandong City in Liaoning.

China's flood control authority urges increased efforts fighting Yalu River floods
 

ajtr

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How Nature and Policy Produce China's Record Floods



This year's summer rains have been a season of devastation and suffering in China as rivers have often registered record-breaking flood levels. Among multiple disasters, the recent mudslides in northwestern China's Gansu Province stand out.

Thousands died there who would be alive today if the recommendations of experts had been followed. The failure to protect the population in Gansu Province calls attention to the way in which state policies have combined with this year's heavy rains to produce an especially destructive flood season in China.

On Aug. 7, mudslides engulfed several villages in Zhouqu County in Gansu Province. As of Aug. 16, official media reported 1,254 deaths with 490 missing. Local residents said the death toll was much higher.

An investigation by the Ministry of Land and Resources in December 2008 had named Zhouqu County as the place in China most in danger from landslides. According to an article in the magazine Twenty-First Century Business Commentary, because of the county's special geological environment, geologists recommended relocating the residents of 22 villages.

Such a massive relocation would not have been cheap and was more than the county could afford. A report to the Provincial People's Congress in January 2009 estimated the project would cost 340 million yuan (approximately US$50 million). In 2008, the county's total revenue was 23.8 million yuan (US$3.5 million).

Clearly, having Zhouqu County fund this was not possible. The officials of Gansu Province would have needed to act promptly to remove the 130,000 residents of Zhouqu County from the dangers predicted by the Ministry of Land and Resources.

But nothing was done. The situation in Zhouqu County is unique only in the staggering loss of life suffered on a single day. A lack of will or foresight needed to protect the population in the planning of China's water development has been a general problem, according to one expert.

Dr. Wang Weiluo is an engineer who participated in the Three Gorges project-feasibility study in the 1980s and has since closely followed how the Chinese state uses its water resources. He holds a doctorate degree in land-use planning and currently works for an engineering firm in Germany.

According to Dr. Wang, the leaders of Chinese regional governments hope to use development, in particular the development of water resources, to display political achievements. They often pay attention only to immediate personal benefits they gain from construction projects and ignore the long-term interests of the citizenry.
Overdevelopment
In the case of Zhouqu County, several decisions made by regional officials had helped put it in danger.

Dr. Wang said that, apart from the rainfall, the main reasons for the Zhouqu County disaster were the overdevelopment of the Bailong River valley and the city planning and construction in Zhouqu County.

The town of Zhouqu County is located in a long, narrow valley along the Bailong River, in a mountainous area with the residential areas concentrated on the river's narrow banks. However, the town was developed as though it were a city on flatland along a river.

The Bailong River has had its channel artificially straightened, narrowed, and deepened. The channelization of the river makes it more suitable for generating hydroelectric power.

A series of cascades—a series of hydroelectric dams—was built on the river, with over 15 hydroelectric projects built in Zhouqu County. The dams have been constructed to have a high-water level, which makes more likely that the banks on both sides may have landslides.

Complicating the situation in Zhouqu County is its deforestation. Professor Zheng Fengtian of People's University in China was quoted in the Morning Newspaper (Xinwen Chenbao) as saying that from the 1950s to the 1990s, about 1.9 million mu (approximately 313,000 acres) of forest were cut in Zhouqu County.

Professor Zheng said that as the mountainous area lost its vegetation, the area's ability to regulate floods was reduced, and the soil was more easily eroded.
The earth and stone excavated for the construction of the hydroelectric dams also increased the potential for landslides. The material has backfilled the valley, becoming abundant loose material available for landslides.

There was a major landslide in Zhouqu County in 1992, and there have been several landslides in recent years. In 1996, local officials began to build structures to block debris from sliding down but did not finish the project.
Severe Flooding
The Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters published statistics on July 30 that said that this year in China a total of 28 provincial cities have experienced floods, destroying 9,172 thousand hectares (approximately 23,000 acres) of crops and affecting 137 million people, killing 991, leaving 558 missing, collapsing 1.07 million houses, and threatening 10 million people, with direct financial losses of 193.5 billion yuan (approximately US$28.5 billion).

Deputy head of the Ministry of Water Resources Liu Ning said on July 21 that since the start of summer, violent and sudden storms have severely flooded over 100 cities of medium or larger size. In the entire country, over 230 rivers have experienced emergency flood levels, and 25 middle-size and small rivers have had record-breaking floods. Over 2 million people took part in rescue efforts.

Dr. Wang said that after the big floods of 1998, the Chinese government promoted a policy of "returning farmland to forestry" and "returning farmland to lakes"—replanting trees in all farmland with a gradient of over 25 percent and turning all the farmland that was originally lake back into lakes.

A few years ago, this policy was stopped because the state needs to maintain 296.5 million acres of farmland in order to secure a stable grain supply for China. The urbanization of China has steadily absorbed former agricultural land for construction. In order for the Chinese state to guarantee the baseline, it has reverted to policies that sacrifice the environment.Dr. Wang believes the overdevelopment of China's rivers, including the building of large numbers of water reservoirs, has led to China's river landscape losing the ability to regulate itself. And that is the biggest reason for the seriousness of the floods this summer. Currently in China, there are 86,000 reservoir construction projects, the highest number in the world.

In China, regional governments can apply for funding to build reservoirs in the name of producing electricity and prevent flooding. A high-ranking expert who wished to remain anonymous told The Epoch Times that the hydrological bureaus in the regional governments actually welcome floods because "this way the central government will invest more funds to engineering projects."

"It's like bad doctors who wish more people will become ill so they can make more money," the expert said.

This article first appeared in the New Epoch Weekly.
 

ajtr

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China Floods May Be Sign of Wider Problems


The floods now besetting China may be related to the country's trajectory of economic development, set by the Communist Party, which has pursued GDP growth at massive environmental cost and consequence, according to experts interviewed by The Epoch Times.

Southwestern China, stricken by severe drought in the first half of the year, is now suffering from flooding—along with three in four Chinese provinces, the worst since 2000.

Water resource experts believe that drought and flood are related, and that both are caused by water loss and soil erosion, which leads to a rupture of the ecological balance.

With thousands of potential and confirmed deaths so far, the heavy rain is expected to continue, putting more pressure on reservoirs and other flood control projects, according to forecasts by China's National Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarter.

Dr. Wang Weiluo, a land-planning expert, has published numerous articles on China's water resource issues for decades, and is a leading expert in the field. He stresses that excessive development of river projects, single-minded pursuit of GDP growth, the destruction of virgin forests, and especially the destruction of the Tibetan Plateau (which he considers China's "water-tower"), are the largest contributing factors to the country's droughts and floods.
Water Resources at an Impasse
"Water is the lifeblood of economic development," Wang said in an interview with The Epoch Times. "Today the issue of China's water resources has become a bottleneck and the most difficult part of China's economic development."
A project of communist proportions was conceived by the Party's Academy of Sciences to attempt to resolve the issue. Announced at the National People's Congress by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member He Zuoxiu, the South-North Water Transfer Project was meant to do what the name implies, and thereby "revive the Chinese nation" and double the size of its farmland.

China's future lies in its water. But after the drought in the southwest during the first half of the year, many note that its water resources have reached an impasse. "The Chinese nation has reached a most dangerous time—no water, and hence no agriculture," in Wang's words.

Northern China experienced severe drought in 2009, which the massive (and still unfinished) South-North Water Transfer Project was supposed to solve. It is planned to divert water from the upper, middle, and lower reaches of the Yangtze River to meet the development requirements of northwest and northern China.

But as a result of the drought, the Yangtze's water resources have been heavily taxed. Water resource experts in China are turning their sights on the water from the Tibetan Plateau.But the Tibetan Plateau is not a solution either, Wang says.
"The worst destruction to the ecosystem in China may occur in the Tibetan Plateau," Wang says. He argues that China's water tower has been destroyed by the regime's economic growth policies.

Under the banner of "developing Tibet," Wang says, the regime sends officials, who belong to the Han ethnic group and have lived outside of Tibet their whole lives, on several year-long assignments. As such, they concern themselves only with short-term accomplishments to gain promotions.

Shortcuts to economic growth are shortcuts to death for the prairie, however. Harmful activities include gold mining, jade mining, harvesting Chinese medicine, and harvesting native plants. (An example is Nostoc flagelliforme, a special long-threaded moss, which can be used as a health food.)

According to Wang, officials divided the pasture area into plots and forced Tibetan herdsmen into leases—an entirely foreign approach to their traditional way of life.

Generally the animals have the instinct to "graze only on the fresh grown grass sprouts, but not the roots." This causes no damage to the pasture. "When they have finished with the grass sprouts, they move on where they can find fresh new leaves. The next year, the herds will come back to where they started and the new grass leaves are again ready for them to consume," Wang explains.

With officials having forced Tibetan herdsmen to settle the herds in one place, however, when the animals have finished eating the grass sprouts they have no choice but to start eating the roots. Desertification is then inevitable.

Previously, the Tibetan grassland was so thick that even the rats could not dig holes in it, Wang says, but now they dominate the area. The underground water level has dropped as a result.

"In fact, the Han officials' stationary [grazing] policy has failed several times in history and has caused the collapse of dynasties. The Han Dynasty is an example."

Wang believes that after such large-scale damage it is nearly impossible to return the Tibetan Plateau to its original state. This is partly because of the cold climate in the region requiring the plants to have extra long growth cycles.
Unsustainable Growth
In the meantime, the regime's development shows no sign of stopping: hydropower stations are now being built, which seriously diminish water resources.
Experts say that generally the usage rate of a river should not exceed 15 percent of its volume, five percent being the ideal. According to Wang, however, the usage rate of many rivers in China is 100 percent, meaning that the capacity of the reservoirs has reached the flowing capacity of the river.

The Yellow River, whose usage rate is over 100 percent, has completely dried up in many areas. When the river runs dry a small amount of water is usually released from the reservoirs to artificially maintain a flow.

Liaohe River in northeast China and the Haihe River near Beijing are examples. In the case of the Haihe, instead of the river running into the sea, now salt water often flows back into the river. The Yongding River, also close to Beijing, too dried up from overuse.

Rivers have a self-cleansing ability, Wang said; but reservoirs destroy this.

He illustrated China's river predicament with a vivid example: "We all know that the kidneys cleanse the human body. If one sells one's kidney for profit, it is just like the profit from hydropower stations. Since one has lost one's cleansing organ, he has to buy a machine to clean his blood. The same situation applies to the river where water filtration plants have to be built."

In the Chinese context, this is all in pursuit of GDP growth. "A person with a healthy kidney does not need a blood-cleansing machine, but produces no GDP. He sells his kidney to increase the GDP. Then he buys a blood-cleansing machine, which even increases the GDP more," Wang said.

"The Chinese regime's way of calculating things is different from that of other countries."
 

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Floods halt shipping at China's Three Gorges dam

(AP) – 1 day ago
BEIJING — Authorities have halted shipping through China's massive Three Gorges Dam on the upper reaches of the Yangtze river because the dam will experience another flood peak Tuesday.
Water levels at the world's largest hydroelectric project have been at high levels for weeks from record rains, which have also lashed other parts of the country, triggering landslides and flooding, and causing deaths and billions in damage.
The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said that late Monday the water level in the dam was about 500 feet (152 meters), 24 feet (7 meters) above the flood alarm level but still below a peak of about 518 feet (158 meters) reached earlier this summer. The reservoir's maximum capacity is 574 feet (175 meters).
The statement posted on the organization's website said shipping services through the dam were suspended twice in July because of heavy water flows into the dam, a $23 billion project that was built to end centuries of floods along the Yangtze River basin.
This has been the worst year in a decade for floods and landslides in China, with widespread evacuations and washed out villages.
Over the weekend, flooding along China's border with North Korea forced the evacuation of more than a quarter-million people, although water levels along the Yalu river have now fallen.
The worst-hit area was the northwestern province of Gansu were rescue efforts have been called off for 330 people still missing after an Aug. 8 mudslide tore through Zhouqu county, killing 1,435 people, Xinhua said.
 

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Beijing reflects on emergency

A top Beijing official said on Friday that the recent rainstorms in the capital, that resulted in at least 77 deaths, have exposed serious flaws in the city's urban planning, construction, infrastructure and emergency management procedures.

Guo Jinlong, secretary of the Communist Party of China Beijing Municipal Committee, paid tribute to those who lost their lives in the disaster during a trip to Fangshan district, one of the worst hit by the storms.

"We must seriously reflect on these lessons and always bear them in mind," said Guo, who was elected secretary of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee on July 3.

He pointed out that the disaster had delivered some "profound lessons and exposed many loopholes".

Acting Mayor Wang Anshun, who joined other city officials at a memorial ceremony to remember those killed in Fangshan, said he appreciated the public's criticism, and their concerns on the government's handling of the aftermath.

"The municipal government will seriously consider the criticisms raised, and increase its efforts to prevent such a tragedy from happening again," he said.

Latest updates on the storm's death toll has sparked growing public criticism. Municipal authorities reported a new figure of 77 deaths on Thursday evening, four days after first reporting 37 deaths.

Friday was the seventh day following the deaths. In Chinese tradition, the seventh day following death is a day to mourn and pray for the deceased.

Guo led city officials in several minutes' silence on the bank of the Juma River, where flooding caused heavy casualties, as well as considerable damage to property.

Rescuers retrieved 38 bodies in Fangshan, including that of an 8-month-old girl. Most of the victims had drowned.

The downpour, reportedly the heaviest rain to hit the city in six decades, unleashed a city-wide average of 170 mm of rainfall, with Fangshan receiving a record 460 mm of rain.

Qi Hong, head of the district, told municipal officials that conditions there remain chaotic.

Roads are blocked, supplies of electricity and water have yet to be restored and many people have been left homeless.

"Our primary job is to ensure that all the victims have shelter and sufficient food supplies," Qi said.

Guo and other officials dined together with flood refugees and construction workers in a temporary settlement in the village of Baidai.

Qi said the disaster affected 800,000 people in the district, as well as causing 2.26 billion yuan ($358 million) of damage.

Wang pledged that the city government will make every effort in directing relief work, including restoring water and power supplies, repairing roads, controlling possible disease outbreaks and preventing floods in the event of more downfalls.

City braced for more rain

Beijing issued fresh warnings of possible land damage on Friday afternoon, as the city braced itself for more heavy rain from Friday evening to Saturday.

The city's Bureau of Land and Resources and Meteorological Bureau jointly issued a yellow alert at 4:10 pm for possible mudslides and cave-ins in mountainous areas in the Pinggu, Huairou, Fangshan and Mentougou districts and Miyun county.

A yellow alert is the third-highest warning level in China's five-tier color-coded geological disaster warning system.

According to the latest meteorological data, Beijing will see showers and thunderstorms in some areas on Friday evening.

Xinhua

Beijing reflects on emergency |Society |chinadaily.com.cn
 

huaxia rox

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Looks like God is punishing China & Pakistan at the same time.
and your people r blessed by god???

1 train can kill some 40 in zangnan and in assam hindus again doing their jobs to wipe out muslims.....good job.....
 

Ray

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and your people r blessed by god???

1 train can kill some 40 in zangnan and in assam hindus again doing their jobs to wipe out muslims.....good job.....
How droll.

Of course, China has no train accidents, no mines collapsing and miners dying regularly and of course, no Muslims in Xinjiang who are not allowed to even undertake their basic religious ritual as fasting during Ramzan.

Not to forget the 'Shangrila' China is giving the Tibetans!

What a gas! :pound:
 
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