The Longdong reservoir in Xuan'en County of Hubei Province discharges flood water on June 25 (XINHUA)

Piles of rubble, up-rooted trees and broken electricity poles are scattered in the Funing and Sheyang counties of Yancheng City in east China's Jiangsu Province, after the area was battered by a ferocious tornado and hailstorm on June 23.

By June 25, the tornado had left behind a death toll of 99 and injured another 846, said Wu Xiaodan, Vice Mayor of the city.

An investigation group made up of 10 meteorological experts was promptly dispatched to the area to conduct an on-site study of wind speed. The tornado registered above 17 on the Beaufort scale, which translates to 73 meters per second, said Zheng Yongguang, leader of the expert group and a researcher with the National Meteorological Center.

Rescue and relief soldiers were still at work on the site days later. Wu said that, by the afternoon of June 25, road transportation and the water supply had resumed and the electricity supply and telecommunication services were expected to return to normal by June 28. Moreover, 107 injured persons had been discharged from hospital. In the two tornado-stricken counties, a total of 1,591 homeless victims were evacuated to temporary shelters.

Heavy disasters 

The tornado and hailstorm took local residents by surprise. A man surnamed Zhang was driving on the road on the afternoon of June 23, when he suddenly noticed felled trees in the distance up ahead. The vigilant driver swiftly abandoned his car and scrambled for shelter before seeing his car tossed up into the sky and then into a nearby river, he told China News Agency.

Sixty-three-year-old Guo Haimei was ladling porridge for preschoolers in a local kindergarten when the gusts arrived. She told the infants to take shelter under the table and then held the classroom door against the wind with all her might. Thanks to her bravery, a significant majority of children avoided injury. However, the tornado tore the kindergarten's roof away, causing seven injuries among the 120-plus children, according to Xinhua News Agency, with one child later dying in hospital.

The disaster struck at a time when the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River were entering the rainy season, as monsoon winds blow humid air onto the continent and the country is on alert for floods. The rainy season in the region usually lasts from mid-June to mid-July.

Earlier this year, words spread on the Internet that on the heels of a strong El Nino, a deluge rivaling the one that hit south China in 1998 might flood the country.

On March 31, China's flood control authorities warned that major floods are highly likely to occur in the Yangtze River this year due to the effect of a prolonged and intense El Nino.

An El Nino event occurs when the temperature in the central and eastern Pacific is 0.5 degrees Celsius higher than during the same period of a regular year for more than six months. The latest event, lasting from September 2014 to this May was a record high in duration and intensity.

For China, an El Nino may mean a warmer winter in the year it occurred, floods in south China and cooler temperatures in north China the following summer, said Zheng Guoguang, head of the China Meteorological Administration.

Despite the El Nino's ending, its effects will linger, Zheng Guoguang explained. He said more attention should be paid to managing meteorological risks, especially against the backdrop of global warming.

Predictions carried out by various groups show that floods like those in 1998 are likely to occur in the Yangtze River basin, Chen Guiya told the media on June 16. Chen is deputy director of the Flood Control and Drought Relief Office under the Changjiang Water Resources Commission of the Ministry of Water Resources.

 

Villagers move a refrigerator in their tornado-shattered home in Dalou Village, Yancheng City, Jiangsu Province, on June 24 (XINHUA)

Rainy season woes 

Storms have wreaked havoc across a number of regions. On June 29, Liu Ning, Secretary General of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters and Vice Minister of Water Resources, revealed that since the start of the rainy season, more than 20 heavy storms had pounded south China, and the water in 222 rivers had surged to an alarming level. The precipitation across the country was 23-percent higher than that during the same period of last year, he said.

"The hydrological condition and precipitation in the Yangtze River basin from March to May were very similar to that of 1998," Chen said. The water level in the mainstream of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River began to rise in early March and has now exceeded the water level in the same period of 1998," he said.

From June 18-21, heavy rain pummeled south China. According to the National Meteorological Center of the China Meteorological Administration, severe downpours raided areas in Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Anhui, and Jiangxi provinces. During this period, precipitation in the Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in Hubei Province exceeded 400 mm.

Since June 18, Poyang County in the north of Jiangxi Province began to experience a record level of heavy rain, causing the Poyang Lake, which is connected to the Yangtze River, to swell greatly. The local hydrology department issued a flood alert a day later, and on June 20, 200 soldiers were deployed for a flood-control mission.

Later that evening, a 60- to 70-meter section was torn in the embankment of low-lying land near Guxiandu Town in Poyang County. An emergency rescue was launched, and more than 10,000 people were safely evacuated, though hundreds of hectares of farmland have been left submerged, reported Xinhua. When the flood finally abated, the breached part of the levee was repaired.

Precautions 

Despite the recent rain, Chen has confidence in the flood control system along the Yangtze, and he has good reason. "Today's flood control system is vastly superior than it was 18 years ago," he asserted.

The Three Gorges Reservoir, completed in 2009, has a large capacity in regulating the water level. The dam is designed to generate electricity and reduce the possibility of flooding downstream by providing flood storage space. It has a water level of 175 meters above sea level when in normal operation.

According to its operation plan, before the flood season, its water level is to be lowered to 145 meters so that it can store a total of 22.15 billion cubic meters of flood water. In 2010, the reservoir endured the test of a flood more severe than the ones in 1998.

In addition to the Three Gorges Reservoir, there are other reservoirs upstream. Chen said these have a combined flood storage capacity of 36.3 billion cubic meters. "By 2022, two large upstream reservoirs will be put into use, which will increase the flood control capacity by 10 billion cubic meters," Chen said.

Moreover, after 1998, the country invested large sums of money to consolidate 3,900 km of major dams along the Yangtze, Liu said on June 29.

Back in 1998, the dams were not high, thick or firm enough for the flood, said Xu Shaojun, an official with the flood control authority of Hubei Province. "The dams had not been reinforced for years, and therefore were riddled with holes," he told Xinhua.

Another reason behind Chen's confidence comes from improved telecommunications and an early warning system.

"Back then [in 1998], conditions were poor. People in some areas had to watch the water level with their own eyes, jot it down by hand and transmit data via telegram. A few hours would elapse before the flood control headquarters received data," Chen recalled.

Nowadays, everyone has a cellphone, so telecommunication is swift and convenient. More importantly, the water level in the Yangtze River is monitored and reported automatically, said Liu. "Now, more than 100,000 hydrological stations are automatically monitoring and reporting precipitation and water levels around the clock," he explained.

At present, weather forecasts are also more accurate than two decades ago, said Zheng Guoguang. In addition, the government is also more experienced in making emergency plans and coordinating flood control efforts.

More than 570,000 affected people had been evacuated to safer areas, effectively reducing casualties, as a consequence of the newly installed systems, according to Zhang Jiatuan, an official with the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

Although a lot of flood-prevention work has been done, the flood control authorities are not worry-free. Xiong Chunmao, Deputy Director of Hubei Provincial Lakes and Reservoirs, said at a press conference on June 17 that 1,100-plus small reservoirs are "ill" and thus are weak links in the flood control system.

These small reservoirs, mostly built in the 1960s and 70s, usually were constructed under lower flood-control standards, are not properly equipped with water-level-monitoring equipment, and are located out of the way, Xiong said. That poses a challenge to flood-control efforts. He said that people are assigned to monitor the water level during all times of the day, and the province plans to reinforce the dams and eliminate risks within three years.

Yuan Junguang, an official with the Hubei Provincial Flood Control Authority, said at the same press conference that the province is "making unprecedented efforts" in fixing levee breaches. By June 16, 59 out of 78 major dam failures had been addressed with emergency underwater repair operations.

Copyedited by Dominic James Madar

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