BEIJING: Nearly 1 million people in China’s northern Hebei province were relocated after record rains forced authorities to channel water from swollen rivers to some populated areas for storage, sparking anger online over the homes sacrificed to save Beijing.
The vast Hai River basin covers an area the size of Poland that includes Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin. Over a span of one week from late July, the region with a population totalling 110 million experienced its most serious flooding in six decades, with Hebei, particularly Baoding prefecture, the worst hit.
According to flood control laws, when basin-wide flooding causes reservoirs, the first line of defence, to exceed their limits, water may be temporarily channelled to so-called “flood storage areas” – including low-lying populated land.
On Jul 31, Hebei province opened seven of its 13 designated flood storage areas, including two in the city of Zhuozhou in Baoding, south of Beijing and north of Xiongan, a zone President Xi Jinping aims to develop into an economic powerhouse serving Hebei, Beijing and Tianjin.
On Aug 1, Hebei’s Communist Party Secretary Ni Yuefeng called Xiongan a top priority for the province’s flood prevention work, according to local state media.
On his visit to flood storage areas in Baoding, Ni added that it was necessary to reduce the pressure on Beijing’s flood control and create a “moat” for the Chinese capital.
“Beijing should foot the bill”, wrote a netizen on the popular Chinese microblog Weibo.
In other posts on Zhuozhou, netizens said residents were not aware they lived in a flood storage area and the rights of the minority had been sacrificed.
“I’d like to know, among all the people living in flood storage areas across the country, how many of them know they are living in such areas?” one angry netizen asked.
Phone calls to the Hebei provincial government on Sunday (Aug 6) seeking comment went unanswered. It did not immediately respond to an email.
Record-breaking rains in Baoding led to the overflowing of 67 of its 83 small reservoirs and water in all of its 10 large reservoirs rising to dangerous levels, the Baoding government said on Saturday.
Source: CNA
