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Can Beijing learn from its worst flooding in 140 years?
In this issue of the Global Impact newsletter, we recap the recent devastation in China caused by record rainfall and floods, and asks what is really being done after the deadly deluge brought back memories of recent tragedies.
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- Global Impact is a weekly curated newsletter featuring a news topic originating in China with a significant macro impact for our newsreaders around the world
- In this issue, we recap the recent devastation in China caused by record rainfall and floods, and asks what is really being done
In this issue of the Global Impact newsletter, we recap the recent devastation in China caused by record rainfall and floods, and asks what is really being done after the deadly deluge brought back memories of recent tragedies
The summer of 2023 will, it appears, be remembered for the horrors brought on by extreme weather.
As southern Europe and North America have been tested by heatwaves and fires, China’s capital city suddenly swung to the other extreme of the weather spectrum in late July – slammed by heavy rainfall that broke a swathe of meteorological records, followed by deadly floods.
The downpour lasted four days and Beijing recorded 744.8mm (29.32 inches) of rainfall - exceeding its average annual precipitation. The rainfall was the heaviest in 140 years – train passengers were left stranded, hundreds of flights were cancelled, and even the Forbidden City that hosted emperors for 600 years could not escape flooding.
Beijing’s mountainous and rural areas were the hardest hit, with roads and cars swept away and villages cut off from transport, water and electricity. More than 1 million people across the city were affected, and nearly 60,000 homes collapsed.
But the most unrecoverable loss was human lives. As Beijing’s death toll reached 33, with 18 people still missing, Premier Li Qiang summoned the State Council and called on officials to work on national flood relief and “maintain the stability of society”.
No wonder, the catastrophic flooding has dealt China another blow at a time when it is going all out to revitalise a sluggish post-Covid economy, while risks such as high youth unemployment and an uncertain external environment pose threats to that much-cherished stability.
Though sometimes, it’s hard to say if the lives claimed by natural disasters are the most profound horror, or if that distinction goes to bureaucrats who act in their own self-interest in the face of catastrophe.
While the capital city’s plight dominated headlines, much of northern China was transformed into a flood zone, including nearby Hebei province.
More than 850,000 people in Hebei were told to abandon their homes
as local officials opened up areas to help drain floodwater that had surged down from Beijing. Hebei Communist Party chief Ni Yuefeng called on the province to “serve as the capital’s moat” - comments that drew public ire.
His remarks came when inspecting the province’s flood-relief efforts in Baoding and the Xiongan New Area - President Xi Jinping’s pet project to relocate some state-run institutions away from Beijing that he called “a plan of a thousand years”. The area, though, is at a lower level than the capital, and historically soaks up floodwater from Beijing.
Zhuozhou, a county-level city relatively unknown before the disaster, suddenly topped headlines across China with stories of homes being washed away, families being separated, and elderly residents stuck at home without food.
More than 130,000 people were affected in Zhuozhou, and the worsening situation was highlighted by the city’s public appeal for financial and material support. Bank account details were shared too - a rare move in China as disaster relief efforts are generally handled by the central government.
But when non-governmental rescue teams rushed to help, they were turned away, as they had not received an official invitation letter to provide the area with help - another local government misstep that angered the public.
Further drama came in an untimely manner, as an audit report - showing that government officials had misused 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) from the reconstruction fund for a flood that killed 400 people in Henan province two years ago - came into public view while rescue efforts continued in Zhuozhou.
Deeply concerned that Hebei might become like Henan, many people decided not to make donations out of fears that their contributions would not reach those most in need.
While Beijing and Hebei have been reeling, China’s northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning - known as China’s granary because the region accounts for more than one-fifth of China’s grain production - were hit by two typhoons in one week, with fields flooded and crops damaged.
Videos of farmers pleading for help made the rounds on social media, adding another challenge to Beijing’s food-security efforts and push for self-sufficiency amid rising tensions with the United States and global market disruptions stemming from the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Roughly three weeks after the floods in northern China, President Xi finally emerged and called for a stronger push in the recovery and reconstruction efforts when he presided over a Politburo Standing Committee meeting.
Xi called for food security to be ensured and for insurance payments to be made as quickly as possible. He also urged cadres to make good use of the disaster relief fund. Within two weeks of the initial disaster, Beijing said it had allocated at least 21 billion yuan (US$2.9 billion) for the relief efforts. Still, it is expected to take at least two years to reconstruct Hebei and three years to rebuild Beijing.
But are there any lessons to be learned from Beijing suffering its heaviest rainfall in 140 years, in an era of extreme weather due to climate change?
Chinese experts have called for weather- and water-level-monitoring systems to be improved, and for at-risk cities such as Beijing to be more prepared.
Beijing has long been notorious for its poor drainage system, and the problem can be traced back to Mao Zedong era, when China was fanatically transformed into an industrialised society. But the majority of the efforts were in vain, and Beijing was left with a poor base to build a sufficient sewerage and drainage infrastructure.
Similar calls were heard a decade ago, when a 2012 flood claimed 79 lives in Beijing within one day. Back then, officials had been making ongoing efforts to upgrade the city’s drainage systems, and the State Council said that no major casualties should ever result from floods in urban areas again.
Four years later, a flood claimed at least 130 lives in Hebei - devastated survivors protested after officials had ignored flood warnings and allowed illegal construction projects to occupy river beds that were critical to release floodwaters.
Can the world’s second-largest economy avert these deadly floods going forward? It remains to be seen.
