Beijing – After two weeks of intense rainfall, areas of Guizhou province in southwestern China experienced intense flooding, including in Rongjiang, Congjiang, Danzhai, and Leishan, among others, as areas facing flood risk expand and community members step up to respond where official disaster response systems have not prepared to respond to flooding.
Greenpeace East Asia Beijing-based campaigner Yang Xinran said:
“The factors that determine flood risk are rapidly changing. As rainfall patterns change, it is no longer solely reliable as the indicator of risk. Even when local governments do have response capacity, it remains within a traditional framework that allocates resources specifically to areas that have historically been at risk. But these frameworks lack mechanisms to engage with local communities and self-organized responses. As flood risk changes, our traditional response mechanism is left blinded.”
Greenpeace today published the story (in Chinese) and photos of Rongjiang locals who started organizing the community, preparing meals for frontline rescue teams, and coordinating and distributing supplies on site. Yang Chenglan is from the local Dong ethnic group and an indigo dying artisan.
Yang Chenglan said:
“I just wanted to help, but there wasn’t much I could do. When I learned that many rescue workers still didn’t have food, we cooked meals and sent them over. I’ve never done this before, but I wanted to help in any way I could.”
Information about what supplies are needed and where, what areas are hardest hit, and which roads are possible is frequently unavailable to all but local communities. To local community members like Yang, this information was available through family and friends, in chat groups and through word of mouth. Yang said that local villagers were able to find frontline rescue teams through social media, and proactively initiated the cooperation with official rescue teams.
Yang Chenglan said:
“[These disasters] are tied to topography and each place’s water draining capacity. When building or undertaking projects, we must consider the long-term perspective like our ancestors did. When constructing, we should still consider ‘feng shui’. Not in a superstitious sense, but by understanding the flow of water in mountain ranges, where water flows, and where winds come from, ensuring buildings do not block these natural flows. If these factors are not considered, events like a once-in-a-century disaster are inevitable.”
Communities like Yang’s who organize spontaneously to fill in the gaps that official response isn’t yet organized to cover are ultimately not a replacement for institutional support. Improving disaster response systems in China requires not just more funding and supplies, but also addressing foundational gaps, including cooperation between government and civilian response, information sharing systems, and most importantly a resilient infrastructure with disaster response capabilities that respond to specific needs of local communities who face growing, unprecedented risk.
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For media enquiries please contact:
August Rick, Greenpeace East Asia, Beijing, ([email protected])
Greenpeace International Press Desk, [email protected], +31 20 718 2470 (24 hours)
