Tens of thousands of local residents gather and march in a memorial for two firefighters killed in the wildfire in Xintian County, Hunan Province, on Oct. 25, 2022. The wildfire broke out on Oct. 17, lasted for more than seven days, and engulfed half of the county, but the news was censored to ensure the party congress would be held without any disturbance. (Video screenshot)
Wildfires in Hunan, a province in south central China, erupted on Oct. 17, but the Chinese media has kept silent on the natural disaster. The fire has been raging for over a week, so far burning down two townships and killing two firefighters.
Chinese netizens blamed the regime’s party congress for the media silence. The national meeting that took place on Oct. 16 to Oct. 22 was the entire focus for the country’s state-backed media.
Chinese media kept silent until Oct. 25, when local residents held a memorial for the deceased firefighters.
Online video captured tens of thousands of local residents gathering and marching with banners to honor the first responders. They chanted, “Safe Trip Home [Rest in Peace].”
Zhao Lanjian, a former journalist now living in the United States, told the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times on Oct. 28, “With such a large formation, will mainland Chinese see it reported? No! Not even online.”
He emphasized, “I am sure there’s grievance among those people, maybe their families or relatives were killed in the fire or the homes that burnt down.”
Widespread Forest Fire
Chinese media Caixin reported that the fire in Xintian County, Hunan, broke out on Oct. 17.
Multiplevideosshowed the fire spreading and houses burning in the surrounding mountains of Xintian.
Zhao said the fires burned down at least two townships, Yao Township and Jinling Town.
The Chinese ministry of emergency management said on Oct. 24 that the two deceased firefighters were “heroes” and that 861 firefighters and rescue personnel had been dispatched to the area.
Zhao said that the memorial was held with a local official’s approval on the morning of Oct. 25. It was live-streamed by attendees, but the signal cut out half way and the online video was deleted later that afternoon.
Firefighters work on extinguishing a forest fire that started near Xichang in Liangshan prefecture of Sichuan Province, China, on March 31, 2020. (China Daily via Reuters)
Censorship
Zhao said that during the party congress, information of the wildfire was censored even though the fire lasted many days and engulfed nearly half of the county.
When searching Chinese networks, the only information available online is one official report from a Hunan provincial meeting on Oct. 17 to mobilize the emergency firefighting response. However, the content of that press release is also no longer available.
The other related information was an official release by Hunan authorities on Oct. 19 from an emergency meeting announcing a high danger rating for wildfires for the entire province, specifically naming seven cities and counties surrounding Xintian.
On Oct. 21, the state mouthpiece CCTV reported a red code wildfire alarm for the entire southern region of China, where a forecast of “severe to extreme drought and high incidence of forest fires at an extremely dangerous level” was issued by the authorities in emergency management, forestry, and weather.
All for Party Unity
Xintian was not the only county hit by the forest fire.
On Oct. 17 when Chinese leader Xi Jinping was meeting the Guangxi delegates in Beijing during the party’s 20th national meeting, a wildfire broke out in Guangxi Province.
The online posts of Guangxi wildfire were quickly deleted from the Chinese social media platform Weibo. Netizens commented that no fire can break the “peace and unity image” of the national meeting, according to posts cited by Radio Free Asia.
Wildfires broke out concurrently in Jiangxi, Hunan, and Guangxi—three neighboring provinces—on Oct. 17, NTDTV reported.
Domestic Chinese media mentioned nothing of the range and severity of the fires, but only claimed there had been no casualties.
However, local residents said that the Guangxi fires destroyed an entire forest and at least one village. A banana farm worker also died from the fire, while rescue efforts and aids were nowhere to be seen, reported NTD TV.
On Oct. 26, Hunan ordered the closure of mountain areas in the province and a fire ban effective until Nov. 30.
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