4-Storeys High Floods, NO warning for dam water release/10 provinces in southern China are flooding

whoa [Music] as the summer begins there are continuous heavy rains and floods everywhere in southern china the website of the chinese ministry of emergency management revealed that from june 21st to 22nd 104 rivers in the south including in guangxi guangdong suffered flooding above the warning level however it seems that the outside world doesn't know enough about the severe flooding situation in china in recent years why is that we will analyze it in the second half of the episode first of all let's look at the areas where the flooding is most severe this is the city of inda in guangdong province a village is almost completely under the water since june 21st only the top of a landmark heritage pagoda remains public information shows that the first floor of the pagoda is 5.48 meters high and the whole pagoda is 48.5 meters high in this video what you see isn't the scrub but treetops [Music] [Music] guangdong province is within the pearl river system and on the noon of june 22 the flood warning was upgraded to red by the ministry of water resources some people in indus city have been evacuated to a stadium however many people in rural areas are left with no help many local netizens have taken to china's social media weibo to seek help a post reads that the area has been without power and water for three days and that people trapped there are in desperate need of rescue one user writes my home town is flooded up to the third floor my 70 year old grandfather lives alone there family members can't make their way back and the family house is in bad shape i'm really afraid that something terrible might happen another post reads my uncle is still stuck on the roof whoever passes by or has a boat please stop to check on him bring him some food and i will pay for it why is the flooding in ingdua so bad ingda is a county level city which belongs to qingyuan city ching yuan city is sandwiched between xiaoguan city and guangzhou the capital city of guangdong province xiaoguan city upstream of inda city was hit by what officials described as a 1 in 50 year flood in order to protect the local reservoirs in the region reservoir gates were opened and water was released to ching yuan city [Music] [Music] [Applause] foreign at the same time in order to protect the metropolis guangzhou located downstream the local reservoir in qingyuan can't open its gates and release water to guangzhou so the area including the city is sacrificed [Music] teacher online video shows that besides indus city another county has been turned into a sea of water landslides have led to disastrous mudslides there's no electricity in water villagers are homeless [Music] [Music] metropolis guangzhou is also under water now but if not for the total inundation of the upstream city of ingdah the flooding in this metropolis would have been much worse other cities in guangdong province are also soaking in floods of varying heights [Music] as opposed to heavy rainfall the main driver of the flood is the secretive release of water from local reservoirs this is a city in jiangxi province where a lot of villages have been flooded farmland and roads are overrun by floods and no water or electricity are in the area local residents have complained online that the lack of timely notification before the release of two reservoirs has led to severe flooding of people downstream so [Music] [Music] an urgent notice issued by the municipal government on june 20th was leaked online the notice clearly stated the two reservoirs were being organized to release flood water but the local people didn't receive any official notice this video shows the flood water rushing into people's homes soaking their belongings local residents said that a dozen villages in chiang rao city have been flooded with the water level reaching 3 meters affecting 100 thousand people some townships have also been flooded one local citizen told in overseas chinese media the water came very fast water discharge combined with the heavy rain and without any advance notice of the water discharge we didn't have enough time to evacuate water rose very quickly where could we evacuate to when there is no help in an hour or so the flood water had risen who is able to evacuate who will take care of us no one is responsible no one came to see us a number of other provinces in southern china are also being hammered by flooding [Music] oh [Applause] foreign [Music] [Music] after seeing so many terrifying scenes you might be stunned at how many people in china's major cities and the world don't seem to be aware of the horrendous flooding that is taking place in china nor do they know about the plight of people in villages or small counties who are without water and electricity and many have lost their homes the main reason is that no official media in china will report them or present the flood scenes yet all of this exists for real on june 22 the ministry of emergency management of china issued a statement on its website the statement revealed that from 8 p.m on june 21st to 8 p.m on june 22nd 104 rivers in guangxi guangdong hunan jiangxi jiujiang and fujin experienced flooding above the warning level some sections of the mainstream of the beijing river experienced flooding above the historical level and the water level of the mainstream of the xijjiang river has risen it also said that a task force has been sent to the affected cities in guangdong province and yangxi province emergency supplies have been deployed such as woven bags compound woven cloth rafts pumping stations folding metal mesh boxes and other flood controlled materials the ministry of emergency management requires focus on small and medium-sized river flooding flash floods and geological disasters urban flooding and other disaster prevention and response the statement however didn't mention any specifics of the local disasters including casualties and economic losses flooding in china has become increasingly prevalent in recent years due to various man-made factors the official chinese media has responded to such disasters subtly and cleverly as a result news of devastating floods is usually circulated only on social media where tragic footage doesn't appear on official media for example on june 22 china's state news agency the xinhua news agency published a report titled why the recent heavy rainfall in the south in high temperatures in the north it still only refers to many rounds of heavy rainfall in southern china causing the recent flooding in the south and drought in the north without mentioning at all the 104 rivers are experiencing flooding above the warning level in the report so-called experts were asked to do some analysis to explore why these regions experienced unusually high precipitation and so on leaving the reader with the impression that there was only a lot of rainfall in southern china without any idea of serious flooding taking place normally people aren't likely to visit the website of china's ministry of emergency management so most people know very little about the flooding that's happening across china if a disaster is too big to cover up completely then the chinese media will focus on the rescue efforts and keep a tight grip on the visual images for example in the official chinese media coverage earlier the flooding in inda was described as internal inundation few viewers could make the connection from that term to the discharge of the reservoir upstream and the safeguarded city of guangzhou located downstream as of 8 pm this evening the total number of operations carried out by the inda fire department is a special case as the real executive in charge of domestic affairs his remarks occasionally reveal the truth and what the chinese communist party really cares about when it comes to running the country on june 22nd lee kuchiang presided over an executive meeting of the state council and the first item reported by xinhua news agency was to continue to do a good job in flood control and disaster relief according to the report the meeting pointed out that during the recent heavy rainfall that continued in many places in the south the relevant parties responded in a timely manner and made efforts to reduce the damage caused by the disaster this was supposed to be a word of praise but it clearly reveals that the flood disaster has been happening for some time and has caused a lot of damage but no details have been disclosed yet the report also said that to continue to do a good job in flood relief how to do it there are four important points the first one is to ensure the safety of large reservoirs on major rivers to survive the floods the last one is four proper placement of the people affected and timely repair of flood damaged facilities this is the characteristic of the chinese communist party that the safety of reservoirs is more important than human life small counties can be sacrificed compared to big cities where economic interests are huge there are nearly 100 000 reservoirs in china covering virtually all the rivers and cities in china they have become a lever in the hands of the government in order to protect major cities and to prevent dam failures many reservoirs discharge water when the water level exceeds the warning level it often exacerbates the flooding caused by heavy rains causing the water level to rise suddenly and dramatically moreover reservoir gates are usually opened at night on the sly without advance warning people in the affected areas are unprepared subject to significant loss of property and even life when reservoirs are released without warning such losses and disasters are considered natural disasters and people aren't entitled to reasonable compensation except for a meager subsidy [Music] the reservoir water comes fast with the eyes can see there is water this is making people cry in this case we can only pay for the losses ourselves [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] 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