Flash Flood Fury and Rising Death Tolls

special report: Flash Flood Fury

By staff reporters Chang Hongxiao and Yang Binbin
When China’s flood seasons approach, worried eyes of the nation turn to rising water levels along the county's great rivers. 
Yet, in reality, flash floods in steep terrain have now taken stage alongside mighty river floods as lead characters in a national drama of natural disasters. 
Flash floods are caused by rain running off mountains and hills. They can trigger mudslides and landslides. And, unlike river floods, flash floods can strike quickly, creating sudden disasters and wreaking enormous damage. They are also notoriously hard to predict and prevent. 
Incomplete statistics collected by put the flash-flood death toll at more than 300 since the beginning of this year's flood season in Chongqing municipality and Yunnan, Hunan, Shaanxi, Sichuan and Guangxi provinces. This loss of life far exceeds the death toll from river flooding during the same period. 
According to the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters (FCDRH), a branch of the Ministry of Water Resources, some 70 percent of all deaths due to floods in 2006 occurred during flash floods. In 1991, however, flash flooding accounted for only a quarter of all flood-related deaths. 

Some flood prevention experts think even those figures underestimate the fatality rate. One expert at the Ministry of Water Resources' Water Resources Research Institute, who asked to remain anonymous, told the total number of deaths due to flash flooding, and the proportion of the total flood death toll they represent, have been rising since 2001. In fact, the official said, of the deaths in 2006 “95 percent or more were due to flash floods.” 

Flash floods have long plagued China. Shang Quanmin, head of the No. 1 Flood Prevention Section at FCDRH’s national office told that as many as 180,000 died in flash floods between the 1949 founding of the Peoples' Republic of China and 2000. Direct economic losses were as high as 40 billion yuan a year. 

But in the bigger picture, since mountain regions tend to be sparsely populated and less economically developed, the damage caused by flash floods bears little resemblance to the huge consequences of river flooding in the plains along China's great rivers. As a result, flash floods have traditionally been less of a concern to the general public.  

The situation, however, has seen something of a turnaround in recent years. Liang Zhiyong, deputy chief engineer at the FCDRH’s Center for Engineering Technology Research, is of the opinion that the death toll from river floods is falling as river controls improve and attitudes toward flood prevention are adjusted. But on the other, rapid urbanization and economic expansion have created economic hot-spots in many mountain areas, dramatically increasing the possibility of disaster-related losses in human and economic terms. 

The 31 million people in Chongqing, China’s largest municipality, reside in what officials call the “highest risk area of the high risk areas” for flash floods. Mountains or hills cover at least 80 percent of the land – a geographic feature found elsewhere in the high-risk provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Hunan, Gansu, Shaanxi and Guangxi. In these areas, the proportion of flood-related deaths caused by flash flooding has risen alarmingly over the past decade. 

Five years ago, then-deputy premier and now Premier Wen Jiabao gave formal instructions emphasizing that “the frequency of flash flooding and the severity of the losses it creates is now one of the most pressing problems in disaster prevention and amelioration work. 

“The prevention of flash flood disasters must be given high status,” Wen said. “We must take serious stock of the experiences and lessons of the past, study the characteristics and patterns of flash floods, adopt an integrated prevention strategy and, as far as possible, reduce the losses caused by flash floods.” 

Prior to Wen’s speech, China had, like the United States and European countries, considered flash floods and mudslides as natural disasters that should be handled by geologists. As a result, agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey and China’s Ministry of Land and Resources had the responsibility to oversee flash-flood control. 

After Wen's speech, flash floods took center stage and China coined an expression meaning “mountain floods” to describe the problem. Responsibility for flash flood control and prevention shifted to FCDRH. In December 2002, the Ministry of Water Resources led five ministries in creating the National Leading Group for Flash Flood Control and Prevention Planning. E Jingping, deputy minister for water resources and FCDRH secretary general, was appointed group chairman. 

In June 2005, the central primary school in the town of Shalan, Heilongjiang Province, was hit by a flash flood that killed 117 students and teachers. The tragedy shook the nation, triggering further improvements in flash flood control and prevention. A few months later, the State Council passed China's first specific plan for integrating prevention of flash floods, mudslides and landslides.

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