Flooding and Earthquakes Devastate Chinese Provinces, as Jiangxi Announces ‘Wartime’ Preparations

Flooding and Earthquakes Devastate Chinese Provinces, as Jiangxi Announces ‘Wartime’ Preparations
Signs are seen submerged in floodwaters on the bank of the Yangtze River in Nanjing, China on July 12, 2020. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)
Nicole Hao
7/12/2020
Updated:
7/12/2020

The Chinese regime upgraded its flood response alert to its second-highest level on July 12, after announcing that 27 provinces have been affected by heavy rainstorms that continue to wreak havoc.

Meanwhile, along thousands of miles of the Yangtze River, water levels surpassed alarm stages.

On July 12, people in Wuhan—the city where the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus first emerged—were using sandbags to raise and reinforce river banks, while some areas of the Yangtze reached more than 94 feet, more than 15 feet above the average ground level of the city.
Authorities estimate that the river level may rise to more than 95 feet by July 14, or more than 16 feet above ground level.

Several towns in nearby Jiangxi Province were almost submerged by flooding.

Meanwhile, the northern Chinese city of Tangshan experienced a 5.1-magnitude earthquake early on July 12. The tremors damaged buildings that were made of poor-quality material. That day, the counties of Luchun in Yunnan Province, Zoige in Sichuan Province, and Wushan in Chongqing city also recorded quakes of magnitude 4.4, 4.0, and 3.0, respectively.

Authorities announced that millions have been displaced, with at least 141 people dead or missing. But given the Chinese regime’s history of concealing information, experts fear that the true numbers are far higher.

Jiangxi Battles Embankment Breaches

Southern China’s Jiangxi Province issued its highest flood warning on July 11 after embankment breaches caused several counties to be inundated.
On July 12, state-run CCTV reported that out of Jiangxi’s 1,580 miles of river or lake banks, nearly 1,400 miles had reached above their alert levels.

Local rivers in Jiangxi, such as the Rao, Xin, Xiu, and Chang rivers, have also been flooded since July 6.

Particularly at Poyang, China’s largest freshwater lake, levels were rising at an unprecedented pace.

“The water level of Poyang lake has increased by over 53 centimeters (1.74 feet) every day in the past three days,“ according to a report that cited Xu Weiming, a top flood control expert in the province. ”Now, it is over two meters (6.56 feet) higher than the alarm level.”

The Chinese Communist Party boss of the province, Liu Qi, announced July 11 that the province had entered “wartime” preparations. Liu asked the province to prepare for “heavy floods” and “a big catastrophe.”
In the Mianchuan and Jiangxinzhou townships of Jiujiang city on July 12, local authorities ordered: “Seniors, children, and sick residents must leave your homes today. ... Others be prepared to leave at any time.”
On July 10, authorities in Jiangzhou township, also located in Jiujiang, issued a call on social media for migrant workers aged 18 to 60 to help with disaster efforts, citing a severe lack of hands to reinforce dams.

The devastation has been overwhelming to local businesses.

“Three-thousand tons of tea became trash after being submerged in floodwater over one night,” said Mr. Zheng, a tea factory owner in She county, in China’s eastern Anhui Province, in a social media video published on July 10.

Zheng told state-run media Beijing News that he was worried that he couldn’t compensate the more than 1,000 farmers who supplied him with the tea leaves.

Nicole Hao is a Washington-based reporter focused on China-related topics. Before joining the Epoch Media Group in July 2009, she worked as a global product manager for a railway business in Paris, France.
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