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Floods displace millions of China's poorest
Written by: Peter Apps
You might not find many Western aid agencies working there, but the recent floods in China have already displaced some 4 to 5 million people - twice as many people as the Darfur conflict and about as many as Iraq. Experts fear they may take years to recover. More than 150 people died last week alone, state media said, in what some reports call China's worst rain since records began. It is not just China, of course. Floods have battered various parts of the world from central England to Sudan to Pakistan. But in China, as always, the numbers are massive. "According to the government, around 200 million people have been affected and 4 to 5 million have been evacuated," Quinghui Gu, regional disaster coordinator for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies (IFRC), told AlertNet. "There is great need there and the government is doing as much as they can." China's government has mobilised vast numbers of volunteers and the People's Liberation Army to help, supported by the Chinese Red Cross. It has not called for support from the outside world. Gu said the response had so far been a success and that the death toll was surprisingly low given the scale of the flooding. He said around 500 people had died - slightly higher than the state news agency Xinhua estimate of 400. Last year, flooding and typhoons killed 2,704 people according to official figures. The IFRC is planning to launch an appeal this week, although it has not yet decided how much for. It has also made emergency funds available to the Chinese Red Cross. Other national branches of the Red Cross already working on a small scale in China - including the American, Canadian and Australian Red Cross societies - were not at present involved in the response, Gu said. Western aid agencies World Vision and Oxfam were carrying out some small-scale work, he said, but it was dwarfed by what the authorities were doing. World Vision told AlertNet it had reached around 70,000 people with food and other essential supplies. It had also distributed around 100 "child friendly kits" to children who had lost their homes. "Inside are toys and some stationery," World Vision China spokeswoman Jessica Law said. "This is to help the children to overcome the psychological trauma." The Red Cross's Gu said his main worry was long-term rebuilding with communities who are already among China's poorest. But he said getting support from Western donors for China - one of the world's fastest-growing economies - was increasingly hard. "China is difficult to raise money for because of the economic situation," he said. "People forget that though there is one part of China that is big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, a few miles away there are rural areas where people are very poor."
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3 responses to “Floods displace millions of China's poorest”
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Peter Apps covered business, politics, disaster, disease, agriculture and occasional crime stories for Reuters in southern Africa before being reposted to Sri Lanka just in time for a new outbreak of civil war. A minibus crash on assignment in September 2006 broke his neck and left him quadriplegic. Nine months to the day after the crash, he was released from hospital in a wheelchair and returned to work for AlertNet in London, scheming his return to field reporting.
24 Jul 2007 12:35:51 GMT
It is a real shame that the floods in China have caused such devastation. China shouldn't put its hand out looking for Western aid as the West has enough of its own problems, both social and economic. As China now has the largest foreign reserves in the world it would do the people good if the Govt. sold some of this off and put it into aid to help flood affected people in the south-west of the country. China is in a much better position than most Asian and African nations to do this.
28 Jul 2007 17:11:57 GMT
Having lived in China, albeit Beijing,I did have the chance to go out of town to the rural areas.My husband was even more fortunate as he visited farmers in various parts of the country. The West should not think that everyone lives in the glass and concrete symbols of success. Perhaps the following story would illustrate the basic difficulties facing most villagers in China. On a visit to Harbin Province the aim was to encourage local farmers to have the milk collected and taken to one central depot for further distribution.To encourage this my husband visited some local farmers to persuade them that this would help them be more productive and improve their income. Reporting back to me he tried to describe the homes of these people and the difficulties they faced.The best comparison he could make about the conditions the average person lived in was to image a medieavel village with simple walls, a straw and a mud floor. If they were fortunate they had cattle and could join the planned milk scheme. Over the next few years regular visits were made and improvements were noted, but as always no system works without unexpected results. Two farmers who had once been good friends were now very distant with one another.One his last visit my husband noted that farmer one now had new brick walls, a concrete floor and somehow a solar panel. Farmer two, still had a mud floor, the old walls but a new bike. When asked if there had been any problems the answer was simple. Farmer ones cow always had produced another cow, so doubling the milk to be collected from his farm .Farmer twos cow produced heifers, and his cow was getting old and the milk less. His income was dropping.Perhaps for the first he thought that being female was in fact a positive and profitable thing. My husband was amused as he said you can plan for everything but not the unpredictability of nature, both animal and human.
30 Jul 2007 19:03:09 GMT
You don't mention that the Western organizations such as World Vision are Christian charities. It's so obvious that certain religions are more concerned about helping. Just look at who is there helping these people.