Hunan Officials Rapped Over Negligence During Deadly July Floods

(Beijing) — More than a dozen officials in Central China’s Hunan province have been issued warnings or removed from their posts for dereliction of duty in response to a deadly flood in July, according to people briefed on the decision by the provincial government.

A few officials were also given “demerit points” that would affect their future promotion prospects, the sources said.

Incessant downpours that lasted several days in late June led to severe floods and mudslides in many parts of Hunan, killing 83 people as of July 8, according to government data. Ningxiang county, an area with 1.36 million people, was among the worst affected.

Mudslides were reported in nine of the 33 rural townships in Ningxiang, causing shops and roads to be inundated, as well as damaging thousands of homes, according to the provincial government.

In a written briefing on August 12, which was only seen by local officials in recent days, investigators backed by the provincial authority said that the high casualty figures from the natural disaster “also had much to do with a lack of coordination among departments in the county and the lack of preparedness to prevent floods.”

For instance, officials at the Huangcai Reservoir hadn’t given residents in Ningxiang enough time to prepare before opening the floodgates to prevent a breach, according to the sources.

If a breach had occurred, it could have flooded a wider area including the provincial capital Changsha.

Many shop owners in Ningxiang had told Caixin that they received the flood warning too late, and therefore had no chance to move their stocks to a safe place and ended up losing millions.

The county government also failed to fortify a dyke near Binjiang Park in the county’s downtown area. The dyke, which was built in 2011, was more than one meter shorter than planned, according to sources who have seen the investigation report.

Several former and incumbent Ningxiang county officials, including former Ningxiang party secretary Li Shiqiu, who currently serves as a deputy party secretary in the city of Yiyang, and the Ningxiang governor, have been given either a warning or a major demerit point.

The naming and shaming does not have an immediate impact on the officials, but could hamper their careers in future, according to analysts.

Wu Limin, head of the Ningxiang water conservation authority, and Pan Liqiang, president of Ningxiang State Assets Management Corp., have been expelled from the ruling Communist Party and removed from their posts due to negligence.

However, the document did not spell out what each of them had done wrong.

It is unclear if any of the middle-ranking officials would have to face a criminal investigation.

Contact reporter Li Rongde (rongdeli@caixin)