ByZHULIXIN
[email protected]
W
ang Pinsan stood in
front of a row of two-
and three-story hous-
es built on land that
stands a few meters higher than
regular farmland in Wangjiaba vil-
lage, Funan county, in the eastern
provinceofAnhui.
“When flooding occurs, these
houses, most of which have been
rebuilt in recent years, become
islandsthatprotectourlives,”Wang
said.
The 65-year-old has experienced
thatproblemmanytimes.Infact,his
familydidnotdarebuildgoodhous-
esuntilabout10yearsago,whenthe
localgovernmentrebuiltthevillage.
Several hundred meters from
the village, which is prone to flood-
ing, are theHuaiheRiver, which is
about1,000kilometerslong,andthe
Wangjiabasluicegates,amajorflood
diversion project located near the
confluence of theHuaihe and two
otherrivers.
Alongsidethesluicegatesisascar-
let inscription written byChairman
MaoZedongthatreads:“TheHuaihe
Rivermustbeharnessedwell.”
Thanks to measures taken by
the government, Wang is no longer
frightenedoffloods,eventhoughthe
memoriesarestillfresh.
When the water level breaches
the banks of theHuaihe in Funan,
authorities have the option of
opening the sluice gates — built in
1953 — to let the excess flow into a
180-square-kilometer basin called
theMengwa FloodDiversionArea,
administered by Fuyang city and
hometomorethan195,000people.
The area, which can hold nearly
700 million cubic meters of water,
has been flooded deliberately 15
timesin12nonconsecutiveyears.
“The water covers everything.
During flooding in 1991 and 2003,
Icould barely see the roofs of the
houses,” said Wang, adding that the
gateswereopenedtwicein1991and
2003—whenthewaterrecededtem-
porarily before rising again — and
once in 2007, the last time the area
flooded.
Located about midway between
the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, the
country’s two longest watercourses,
theHuaihe, along with the Qinling
Mountains to the west, is regarded
as the dividing line betweenNorth
andSouthChina.
Itruns throughHenan,Anhui,
JiangsuandShandongprovinces.
RisinginthemountainsofHenan,
the upper section runs for 364 km
and drops 178 meters over that dis-
tance,accordingtotheHuaiheRiver
CommissionoftheMinistryofWater
Resources.
By contrast, the middle reaches,
mostly inAnhui, lie between the
Wangjiaba sluice gates andHongze
Lake inJiangsu.The stretch is 490
km long and it drops a mere 16
meters,accordingtothecommission,
which was founded in 1950 and
is headquartered inBengbu, a
riversidecityinAnhui,andemploys
morethan3,000people.
“It was founded because harness-
ingthislongriverrequiredthecoor-
dinated efforts of governments in
different areas,” said Wu Xu, a com-
missionexpert.
TheHuaihe historically drained
directly into the YellowSea, but
floods have changed its course so
muchthatitisnowamajortributary
oftheYangtze.Evacuationdifficult
Forthousandsofyears,theYellow
Rivertothenorthrepeatedlyaltered
course southward to run into the
Huaihe,creatingnewhighlandsand
lakes, includingHongzeLake, the
largestbodyofwaterintheHuaihe’s
drainage area. “The bed ofHongze
Lakeisactuallyhigherthanthebot-
tomoftheHuaihe,”Wusaid.
Floodwaterrunsrapidlyalongthe
upper section inHenan intoAnhui,
butitisunabletopasseasilythrough
the middle reaches and into the
Yangtze,headded.
Theriver’stotaldrainageareacov-
ers 270,000 sq km — about the size
ofNew Zealand — and straddles all
four provinces, with a total popula-
tionof171million,abouthalfthatof
theUnitedStates.
“The population density makes
evacuation hard; sometimes the
floodscamesoquicklythatwedidn’t
have time to move people out,” saidYang Wenjiu, retired standing dep-
utyheadoftheFunangovernment.
The 1991 floods are recognized as
themostsevereontheHuaihesince
1961,whenthecountrystartedkeep-
ingrecords.Theyaffected54million
people in the four provinces, and
resulted in a combined direct eco-
nomiclossof 34 billion yuan ($4.
billion), or 20 percent of the entire
drainagearea’sannualGDP.
More than 1 million residents in
the flood retention areas inAnhui
were moved from their homes as a
result of the flooding, according to
theprovincialgovernment.
The authorities had two options:
allow the floods to expand to their
full extent, or open the sluice gates
and let theMengwa diversion area
bearthebruntoftheproblem.
“If we didn’t open the gates, the
people along both the upper and
lower reaches of the river would
suffer the biggest losses,” saidLu
Haitao, director of the Wangjiaba
sluicegatesadministrationoffice.
Wu, the river commission expert,
said: “The worst-hit places would
be the lower reaches; the areas that
were more economically developed
andhometomanyimportantfacili-
ties, including railways, coal mines
andfactories.”
Lu said: “TheMengwa people
understood the situation, and the
countrywasproudofthemforthat.”
The gates were opened and the
land was flooded.However, people
in theMengwa area did not receive
compensation for their losses until
2003.Asaresult,thecentralgovern-
ment ordered that villagers should
receive compensation as quickly as
possible if the same decision had tobetakeninthefuture.
InMay,Bengbuhostedanational
floodcontrolconference,whereoffi-
cials and experts warned of a grow-
ing possibility that severe flooding
couldoccurontheHuaihethisyear.
Despite the warning, Wang and
his fellow villagers have sown crops
on the land between the riverbank
and the sluice gates, even though
they know the area will be the first
tobehitbyanyfloods.
Wang’s family of six farms less
than3,000squaremetersoflandin
theMengwaarea.
Data from the provincial govern-
ment show that each of the basin’s
residents farms an average of less
than 700 sq m of land.In the first
nine months of last year, more than
8,600 villagers earned less than
3,000yuan,sothelocalgovernment
provided subsidies and employed
povertyalleviationmeasures.Hugechallenges
When floods come, the people
withdraw, only returning when the
waterrecedes.
Thoughthelocalgovernmenthas
moved thousands of villagers from
thefloodretentionareatosaferplac-
es, huge challenges remain.Some
villagers still live in low-lying areas,
while some of the safe places are so
crowdedthatpeopleneedtoberelo-
cated.
Safe places include the riverbank
and new villages built on high, arti-
ficial platforms inside the basin, as
wellasurbanareas.
InSeptember, the provincial gov-
ernmentissuedplansforsafetymea-
suresforpeoplelivingalongstretch-
esoftheHuaiheinAnhui.It plans to move more than
640,000 people from their homes
before the end of next year, and
either rebuild their houses in the
basinorontheriverbank,orrelocate
themtotownsandcities.
Intotal,theprojectwillcostabout
32billionyuan,accordingtogovern-
mentestimates.
However, while villagers are
unwilling to leave their homes, the
documentalsoacknowledgesseveral
otherproblems.
For example, the compensation
being offered is relatively low, com-
pared with similar projects, and
while villagers will be given new
homes free of charge, they will only
receive about 16,000 yuan each for
leavingtheiroldhomes.
To boost the relocation program,
theFunangovernmenthaspromised
to help at least one member of each
rural household find a job, mean-
ing families will not be reliant on
farming.
Another difficulty lies in the con-
struction of safety projects, because
they require more land, a commod-
itythatisseverelylimited.
AttemptstosolvetheHuaiheRiv-
er’sproblemsalsoincludeimproving
theweatherforecastingsystem.
To provide a better service, flood
and drought relief teams require
more information about weather
conditions across the river’s entire
drainage area.In the past, weather
reports were produced in accor-
dance with administrative jurisdic-
tion, so provincial centers forecast
conditionsforcitiesintheprovince,
whilemunicipalcenterscoveredthe
conditionsincounties.
“It was not scientific, because we
knowtheeffectlargebodiesofwater
andriverscanhaveonrainfall,”said
WangDongyong, director of the
AnhuiMeteorologicalCenter.
In2005,theChinaMeteorological
AdministrationestablishedtheHuai-
heRiverBasinMeteorologicalCen-
ter, which uses the most advanced
technologies and equipment to col-
lect information from across the
drainagearea,accordingtoWang.
BasedinHefei,Anhui’scapital,the
centerisstaffedbyemployeesofthe
AnhuiMeteorologicalCenter.
In recent decades, 38 large reser-
voirs and hundreds of small ones,
with a combined capacity of nearly
300 billion cu m, have been built in
theHuaihe’sdrainagearea.
Authorities have also built out-
lets to allow water from theHuai-
he to run into the Yangtze and the
sea.Currently, the majority of the
Huaihe’sflowenterstheYangtzevia
HongzeLake.
Anirrigationcanalbuiltinrecent
years in the north ofJiangsu also
divertssomeofthewatertothesea.
“We have to be prepared at all
times,”Wusaid.Relocationprogrampartofplanstohelpresidentsinflood-proneareathatstraddlesfourprovinces
Prioritizing safetyalong HuaiheRiver
Volunteers take part in a flood control drill in Fuyang,Anhui province, last year.
CHENGBAOSHENG/FORCHINADAILY8 CHINANEWS August 9-15, 2019 CHINADAILY GLOBAL WEEKLY