NATURAL DISASTERS IN CHINA
Disaster preparedness poster
There has always been natural disasters in China. Some have shaped its history. China is so big that there is some kind of natural disaster every year. The Chinese believe that natural disasters foretell the end of a dynasty or the death of a great ruler. Mao was very ill before the catastrophic Tangshan earthquake and sure enough he died six weeks after the earthquake hit.
In 2003, floods, droughts, earthquakes, hail storms, wind storms, landslides, mud flows, and other natural disasters killed abut 2,000 people, destroyed 2.62 million homes, damaged 6.8 million homes and damaged crops on 50.7 million hectares of land. More than 6.3 million people had to be evacuated.
Figures for natural disasters are not always accurate. In July 2008, officials in Shanxi Province announced that 11 people had been killed in a natural landslide. An investigation after an Internet-lodged complaint discovered that 41 villagers had been buried under a torrent of rocks and waste from an iron mine.
In 2006, natural disasters killed more than 2,000 people. In 2005 they killed almost 2,500 people and left 15.7 million people homeless. That year there were 13 earthquakes measuring 5 or higher and eight typhoons that made landfall. Natural disasters in 2001 killed over 2,500 people. Natural disasters—namely the massive Sichuan earthquake—cost China $110 billion in 2008.
2010 was a bad year for natural disasters, particularly droughts and floods which caused extensive crop damage and food prices rises. An estimated 80 million people needed food relief in the winter of 2010-2011 as a result of food shortages.
Good Websites and Sources: Top Ten Natural Disasters in China in the 20th Century pdf file unpan1.un.org ;Wikipedia article on Natural Disasters in China Wikipedia ; Wikipedia List and Links of Natural Disasters Wikipedia ; Hazards and Diasters in China pdf file /adrem.org.cn
Links in this Website: NATURAL DISASTERS IN CHINA Factsanddetails.com/China ; EARTHQUAKES Factsanddetails.com/China ; EARTHQUAKES IN CHINA Factsanddetails.com/China ;SICHUAN EARTHQUAKE IN 2008 Factsanddetails.com/China ; Factsanddetails.com/China ; RELIEF AND REBUILDING AFTER THE SICHUAN EARTHQUAKE IN 2008 Factsanddetails.com/China ; SICHUAN EARTHQUAKE IN 2008, POORLY-BUILT SCHOOLS Factsanddetails.com/China ; FLOODS IN CHINA Factsanddetails.com/China ; WEATHER IN CHINA Factsanddetails.com/China ; TYPHOONS IN CHINA Factsanddetails.com/China
Landslides and Sinkholes in China
According to the Guinness Book of Records, the deadliest landslide ever killed 180,000 people in Gansu Province on December 16, 1920. It was caused by a powerful earthquake.
In September 2003, 12 people were killed when a landslide buried a group of cave houses in the village of Liangjiagou in Shaanxi Province. Most of the dead were in one cave house that was hosting a party for family members after the birth of a son.
In May 2003, 35 construction workers who were building a highway in Guizhou Province were killed when they were buried under a landslide that occurred after heavy rain.
In 2003, 100 villagers in southern Guangdong were forced to evacuate their homes when the earth under their community suddenly began to sink. Houses split and compassed around the village of Tieken as about 30,000 square meters of earth caved in. The largest sunken area was about 10 square meters and sunk to a depth of about five meters. It is believed that underground streams and caves beneath the community caused the subsidence.
In June 2003, torrential rains and landslides in southern China left at least 148 people dead and caused $730 million in damage.
In July 2003, a massive landslide in Sichuan Province left at least 52 people dead. The landslide was caused by flash floods.
Landslides kill between 800 and 1,000 people a year. Many of the deaths are in Asia, where large numbers of people live in landslide-prone areas. Landslides generally occur on steep, unstable slopes after intense and extreme rainfalls. There are concerns that global warming could increase the risks of landslides.
In June 2008, 19 workers in a brick factory in Luliang city in northern China were killed when a landslide engulfed their factory.
In August 2009, 20 people went missing after a massive landslide blocked the Dadu River in Sichuan Province and threatened a hydro-electric dam.
In November 2008, a mudslide near Chuxiong city in Yunnan Province left 15 dead and 34 missing. It wasn’t clear what caused the landside as there were no reports of heavy rain in the region.
See Floods, Deforestation.
Landslides and Mudlsides in 2010
In the summer of 2010, scores were left missing after torrential rains triggered massive landslides in southern and western China. A massive landslides covered all but the tallest buildings in Ulandi township, a remote mountain community in Yunnan Province, and more than 100 people were killed.
In March 2010, 27 people were killed by a landslide in a remote part of Shaanxi Province near the village of Shuabfhuyi. Most of the dead were in 25 houses that were buried when a mountainside came crashing down on them. One 20-year-old man miraculously was rescued after being buried for 54 hours. His 17-year-old sister was also rescued but she died from her injuries.
In mid August 2010, 35 people were killed, 295 were injured and more than 6,000 homes collapsed in floods cause by heavy rains in Gansu Province near the area where hundreds were killed by a mudslide (See Below). A few days before 32 people were reported missing from landslides triggered by heavy rains in Sichuan Province.
Massive Mudslide in Gansu
In August 2010, over 1,750 people were killed by mudslides triggered by heavy rains that swept through villages in the Zhouqu district of Gansu Province in northwest China. Three villages were swallowed up by waves of mud and rubble-strewn water. Hundreds of homes, including every structure in one village were completely buried. People died in four-story high buildings that were complete engulfed by mud. [Source: AP and Reuters]
About 134,000 people, most of them Tibetans, live in the Zhouqu District. The Bailong River which runs through the region swelled with rain and jumped its banks and was blocked by debris from the mudslides. Mudslides swept down the tributary valleys that ran into the Bailong River. The town of Zhouqu, which the river runs through, was one-third underwater.
More than 45,000 people were forced to evacuate their homes. Many of these people were put up in tents trucked in by the government. Rescue efforts were hampered by heavy rains that continued to fall after the mudslides. Additional mudslides killed dozens more people, blocked roads bringing relief supplies and made life miserable for people living in tents and shelters. A debris dam that was blocking the river, creating a dangerous artificial lake that could have burst through dam at any moment, was breached and drained with explosives. Providing clean drinking water was a primary concert as local sources were either knocked out are too polluted for consumption. Numerous cases of dysentery were reported.
In some houses, everyone was killed. Bodies were wrapped in blankets and tied to sticks or placed on planks and on debris-filled streets for pick up. A few people were rescued several days after the mudslides when they were pulled out of mud-enveloped homes. Much of the rescue work was done by hand with simple tools such as shovels, hoes and ropes as it was initially too difficult to get heavy equipment into the area. Chinese Premier When Jiabao arrived quickly the scene to comfort survivors and offer moral support to rescuers.
One survivor making coffins told AP, “These are all for relatives killed in the mudslide. It was unexpected—a huge landslide like this. There’s nothing left. We managed to escape with our lives. As for relatives, 10 to 20 died from my village.”
Some blamed the disaster on heavy tree-felling and rapid hydro development which made regions such as the one struck by the mudslides in Gansu vulnerable to flooding, landslides and mudslides. Government reports released in 2009 said work needed to be done to protect areas deemed “high-occurrence disaster zones for landslides.” In addition, soils, geological stata and mountain slopes in the region are said to have been weakened by the huge 2008 Sichuan earthquake, whose epicenter was not far from Zhouqu.
Tidal Bore in China
A tidal bore is a big wave induced by a strong high tide that travels up a river. The largest tidal bore in the world occurs on Qiantang River in the Bay of Hangzhou. During the spring a 24-foot wave travels up the river at 15 miles per hour and the noise it generates can be heard 15 miles away.
Typhoons and Drought in China
Another disaster preparedness poster
See Weather
Forest Fires in China
The taiga forests in northern China are incredibly prone to forest fries and the they sometimes spread into Russia. Many are started by careless people, The effort to put them out are hampered by a shortage of firefighting equipment and helicopters.
The Great Black Dragon fire in May 1987, burned for more than a month and devastated more than 46,000 square miles on the Russian side of the Amur and around 5,000 square miles on the Chinese side. China and the Soviet Union did not cooperate at all in fighting the fires.
In June 2006, massive forest fires in northeast China in Heilongjiang Province engulfed more than 50,000 hectares of forest and were battled by more than 20,000 firefighters. The fires were sparked by lightning and linked with below-normal rainfall.
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.
Image Sources: Landsberger Posters http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.
© 2008 Jeffrey Hays
Last updated July 2011