Villagers reel as rains, floods wreak havoc

Suffering from rain-triggered mountain torrents twice in 24 hours, residents in Biyun Village in east China’s Anhui Province said they had never experienced such downpours before.

“It’s getting bigger every time, and parts of the village were inundated by knee-deep floodwater,” said 54-year-old Xia Minghua, Party secretary of Biyun, in the city of Xuancheng.

The village was battered by two torrential floods at 5am and 8pm on Monday, and a total of five bouts of heavy rains in Xuancheng since it entered the flood season this year had forced the evacuation of 22,107 people as of Tuesday.

“Before the flash floods, local authorities had arranged for the relocation of a dozen villagers living in lowlands, riverbanks and other places vulnerable to floods,” said Fang Guanghu, a resident of Biyun. “We are now temporarily living in a conference room in our village, provided with free meals, television, mosquito-repellent incense and quilts.”

While relocating residents, local authorities are racing against time in their rescue work, as “trees and debris washed down by mountain torrents blocked the river channel. We have to dredge it in time to prevent more severe damage in the upcoming floods,” Xia said.

Since June, continuous downpours have lashed parts of China and the waters of many rivers in the affected regions have exceeded warning levels.

China’s State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters upgraded the emergency flood response from Grade IV to Grade III on Tuesday. The country has a four-tier flood control emergency response system, with Grade I representing the most severe.

Although a few days have passed, Luo Yuehua, 65, still felt scared when recalling her experience on Monday night.

“At around 10pm on Monday, local officials came to persuade us to evacuate as soon as possible, as my house was in great danger of collapse due to days of torrential downpours,” Luo said.

Hidden in a mountainous area, Qinglong Village, where Luo lives in Qiaoziwan Township, central Hunan Province, was hit by a rain-triggered landslide on Monday night, when local officials went into the village to relocate 62 residents to a small campus on the highland.

High-altitude Qinglong was hit hard by Monday’s sudden rainfall, with many sections of the mountain roads to the village blocked by falling rocks and tree branches, making it urgent to conduct relocation, said Liu Furong, head of Qiaoziwan Township.

Hunan had evacuated a total of 6,427 people as of Tuesday as a result of the continuous heavy rain that affected more than 146,000 people in the province, according to the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters.

Lashed by incessant downpours, central Hubei Province raised its emergency response from Grade IV to Grade III starting from Wednesday noon.

The recent rounds of heavy rain since July 4 had claimed two lives and affected more than 2.55 million residents across Hubei as of Wednesday morning, the provincial emergency management department said, adding that about 65,000 people have been relocated.

“With food, drinks and other daily necessities all offered free of charge, we don’t need to worry about anything here,” said Fang Yaorong, a resident of Tianxingzhou Island in Wuhan, capital of Hubei, who was evacuated to a relocation site at a primary school.