In dramatic contrast to the response to the floods in Germany, where everyone shouted “climate change” as loud as possible while doing very little to address the physical disaster, the central province of Henan has suffered the worst floods in sixty years, and, as with the Covid-19 crisis, have dealt with the crisis with real scientific analysis of the cause, and full scale mobilization of the institutions, including the PLA, to help the people affected.
The lead editorial in the Global Times has the following: “Situations around the world have repeatedly proven that despite human beings’ continuous advancement in science and technology, nature is still the most powerful. Human beings cannot build a completely safe city. The most fundamental guarantee on disaster resistance lies in human beings’ wisdom and measures to fight nature based on the increasingly solid infrastructure. After all, extreme meteorological disasters are of low probability, and it is difficult to avoid unexpected situations.”
With nary a mention of climate change, the cause of the disaster, which has left 25 dead and 1.24 million affected, the meteorologists explained that typhoon “Yanhua,” which is approaching East China’s Fujian Province on the coast, pushed water vapor from the sea to Henan following the path of the typhoon as well as air currents. “When the airflow hits the mountains in Henan, it converges and shoots upward which causes rainfall to be concentrated in this region,” they said.
The early warning system, which failed miserably in Germany, worked well in Henan: “According to the Chinese Meteorological Association,” Global TImes reported, “it has initiated emergency response for such severe weather disasters as early as on July 16, and Henan local meteorological authorities have released 1,427 early warnings and 162 pieces of red warnings of rainstorms since Saturday. A total of 120 million instant messages containing such warnings for extreme weather were sent to the local residents and some 540,000 of such warnings have been sent to local emergency responding personnel.” One result is that 200,000 people were successfully evacuated before the floods made such evacuation impossible.
President Xi Jinping on Wednesday “demanded that authorities at all levels must give top priority to ensuring people’s safety and property, and carefully and strictly implement the flood prevention and disaster relief measures,” the Times reported. “He ordered authorities at all levels to promptly organize flood prevention and disaster relief forces, properly accommodate those affected, strictly prevent secondary disasters, and minimize casualties and property losses. The People’s Liberation Army and the People’s Armed Police Force must actively assist local authorities in emergency rescue and relief work, said Xi.”
