Liu
Qiao Mei, 75, has been flooded out four times in 10 years. Her
crops have been destroyed and all her possessions washed away.
Part of her house collapsed in last year’s inundation,
which left almost 7,400 homes washed out. More than 5,300 hectares
of crops were destroyed and schools, hospitals and infrastructure
were ruined.
When the water went down, Mrs Liu went home, cleaned out the
mud and started all over again. She is penniless. She has four
mu of land (about a quarter of a hectare), which she rents out
to others for a share of any income. Her daughter has joined
many others of working age who have left home to find work.
She visits at Spring Festival bringing some critical cash.
Today, Mrs Liu sits on a bare bamboo bed frame staring at what
promises to be a bountiful harvest. But no one here in Qingchao
village, Luxi County, an impoverished corner of south central
China’s Hunan province, takes anything for granted. The
village could still lose its rice to summer flooding.
Hunan is one of 27 provinces beset by floods and landslides,
the worst in living memory in places. So far, Luxi has escaped
inundation and indeed much of the county is now suffering serious
drought. Yet the legacy of floods still troubles the village.
The poor become poorer with every disaster.
According to government statistics, a farmer’s average
annual income is just 2,936 yuan (about US$362), less than a
dollar a day. The reality is worse, with huge disparities in
the living standards of China’s 800 million rural dwellers.
This increasingly affluent and powerful country still contains
a fifth of the world’s poorest people.
Disasters, particularly floods, are a major factor.
Halfway through the flood season, the government put flood-related
economic loss at US$3.35 billion. The director of the State
Council’s Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development
describes the easing of poverty as a difficult and long-term
task. Nearly 100 million people live just above the poverty
line, he says, and they could join the masses below it when
exposed to disease or disaster.
The Chinese Red Cross is therefore working to reduce such risks.
Besides relief operations in more than 20 provinces, longer-term
programmes aim to lessen community vulnerability and curtail
the huge loss of life and livelihood. Equally important is to
alleviate the health threats brought by flooding through bad
or non-existent sanitation and the spread of human waste leading
to an alarming level of contamination.
With support from the International Federation, the European
Commission Humanitarian Aid department (ECHO), and the Australian
and Danish Red Cross, the Chinese programmes introduce good
sanitation, improved and secure water supplies, health education
and disaster preparedness.
This work could help Qingchao bounce back from the brink. Village
leader, Tang Yun Peng, describes its worsening plight. All 500
inhabitants depend on farming, he says, and life gets progressively
harder after each flood. The effects of last year are still
biting and a good harvest now would soon be eaten up.
“Farmers borrow money from the bank, mostly to buy seed
and fertiliser,” he explains. “Most of the food
we grow is for our own consumption. A little is sold so we have
some cash but we need that to repay the bank.” The cost
of losing one harvest is enormous; the cost of losing four is
incalculable.
Economic migrants
Lee An Ping, 34, and his wife are among an estimated nine million
migrant workers in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China’s
fastest-growing city. Migrant life is tough so they left their
toddler son in the care of his grandmother. Their home village
of Dian Ma in Yuanling County was twice devastated by flash
floods in 2004 and as Hunan suffered again this year, Lee returned
to ensure the safety of his mother and son. “I was worried,”
he says. “After 2004, anything could happen.”
Much of the dyke along the Yi Xi river was ruined in 2004 leaving
the village exposed. The county authorities say they have no
money to repair it and even if they did, they could never find
enough local labour as most workers have migrated.
Few can make a living in Dian Ma and fewer still have been able
to since the floods. Some fields were covered with sand and
mud and cannot be replanted. Lee’s family has eight mu,
which can earn some 6,000 yuan (US$740) a year. This is shared
between his mother, two brothers and elder brother’s family.
By contrast, Lee’s income in Shenzhen is around 10,000
yuan. Cities like Shenzhen are full of farmers-turned-labourers
who rarely see their families.
Flash flood
The huge flash flood that hit the Long Shan Valley in Xinshao
County on 31 May this year will inevitably lead to more farmers
leaving their homes in search of income. Close to 90 people
died or are missing and 50,000 were affected in this impoverished
part of central Shaoyang Prefecture.
In Yue Ping village, Mo Ken Tang stands where his house once
stood. At 76, he is a Chinese hero, a veteran of the forces
sent to Korea. “I’ve seen places bombed and blown
apart but I don’t remember anything like this,”
he says while his wife cries beside him. “I have four
sons and all our houses collapsed in the flood.”
The authorities had announced that heavy rain was coming but,
with no serious flood in the area for more than a century, the
ferocity of 31 May’s weather came without warning. Such
is the reality of climate change and the growth of weather-related
disasters.
Two months on, people still pick their way through the rubble.
Reconstruction is underway and the authorities will pay compensation
of 1,000 yuan (US$123) a room. Villagers say it isn’t
enough and resent the conditions attached. “We have to
start building to get the money,” explains one man. “But
how can we do that when we don’t have any materials?”
The authorities say the conditions are there to ensure the money
is spent on reconstruction.
Farmland has also been lost. Only some 20 per cent of land in
Yue Ping can be replanted; elsewhere, the rice fields can no
longer sustain the staple crop. In Da Jiang Bian, farmers have
planted wheat and aim to sell the harvest to buy rice. Some
200 mu is now under wheat.
Stripped to the waist, 70-year-old Chen You Tian hoes out the
weeds in the burning sun. “A flood, there’s a thing,”
he says. “No one ever thought of that.”
As the Chinese Red Cross relief operation brought food, shelter
and medical care to the valley, staff therefore also turned
their attention to risk reduction. A Red Cross community vulnerability
reduction programme was already being piloted in one Shaoyang
village and now needs to expand, as it has done elsewhere in
the China’s flood-prone regions.
“Relief is critical now,” says Liu Ju Cheng, Shaoyang
Red Cross vice president. “But it really isn’t enough.”
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Liu
Qiao Mei has been flooded out four times in the past decade.
After each flood life became progressively harder.(p13047)
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Every
year, floods cause huge amounts of destruction and misery
in rural China. (p13048)
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Relief
is critical now but reducing risk is the longer-term aim
of the Chinese Red Cross. In Da Jiang Bian, county Red
Cross vice president, Li Gan Min, listens to villagers'
troubles. (p13049)
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Mo
Ken Tang and his wife stand by their ruined home in Yue
Ping village. The veteran soldier said even in conflict
he had not seen such destruction. (p13050)
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