To remember those who died in the landslide in Gansu Province one
week ago, Chinese people held mourning ceremonies across the country on
Sunday. Chinese national flags throughout the nation are flying at half
mast.
Before dawn on Sunday morning, at Potala Square in the Tibet
Autonomous Region, the Chinese flag was lowered to half mast. Standing
silently in front of the flag, people in the square remembered the
victims.
The national flag of China is seen at half mast at the Potala Palace Square in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, Aug. 15, 2010, to mourn for the victims of the Aug. 8 mudslide disaster in Zhouqu County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in northwest China's Gansu Province. China on Sunday held mournings for the mudslide victims, all over the country and at overseas embassies and consulates. (Xinhua/Chogo)
Local Resident, Tibet Autonomous region, said, "We hope people in
the disaster areas rebuild their families soon. Come on Zhouqu!"
In the city of Dalian, at People's Square, the national flag at
half mast represents the grief of the people of Dalian. But it also
symbolizes hope for a better future.
Survivors of the landslides in north-western China are braced for further misery as forecasters predict more heavy rains.
At least 1,117 people died when mud and debris swept through
Zhouqu, in Gansu province, late on Saturday night and more than 600 are
missing. There is little hope of finding more survivors among what are
thought to be the hundreds who were buried alive in metres of sludge.
The 10,000 rescue and relief workers are continuing to search for bodies but attention is turning to the threat of disease.
Crews in protective suits have sprayed chemical disinfectant
across the ground and over machinery. State media has reported numerous
cases of dysentery and warned of a serious shortage of drinking water,
with most local sources destroyed or polluted.
One survivor, Yang Jianjie, gave a graphic description of the
moment landslides engulfed the county seat. He stood hand in hand with
his parents and grandfather on the roof of their home as the tide of
mud swept towards them – only to be separated as the two-storey
building collapsed.
"Mud and rocks slammed my parents and grandfather in the face and buried them," the 20-year-old told the China Daily newspaper.
The Bailong river burst its banks, sending water coursing through the narrow valley.
Shen Si watched as troops dug at the site of her buried home to
reach the bodies of her relatives. "My mother and father were in their
60s and my younger brothers, all three of them, are buried here in our
house still," she said.
Torrential rains on Saturday night triggered the landslide and flooding.
Experts have said 2008's earthquake in neighbouring Sichuan loosened
rock faces. But government reports show that officials had been warning
for years that deforestation and rapid hydro development were
increasing the risk of landslips in the area.
"This has happened before. The government knew it could happen
again and did nothing to prevent it," said a farmer called Yang, who
did not want to give his full name. Five of his relatives were buried
in the mudslide and he was digging to find them.
There are concerns the barrier lake that has formed could overflow
or burst, especially if there is further rain. Soldiers have been
blasting explosives at the barrier to clear debris and help reduce
water levels. Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated.
Separately, a Chinese paper reported that residents along the
north bank of the Yellow river in Henan province fear for their lives
after heavy rain gouged holes in a newly built flood control dam.
"Every time when we hear the rain is coming we are too scared to
sleep in the evening," a party secretary from one village was quoted as
saying in Dahe Daily.
Wang Dayong, head of the Yellow River Affairs Bureau of Yuanyang,
acknowledged the dam had been damaged but told the Global Times reports
were exaggerated and the structure was strong enough.
Southern China lashed by second typhoon 2010.07.22.
Southern
China has born the brunt of a second typhoon in a week, with shipping
and flights disrupted by heavy rain and strong winds.
State
media is reporting that the government is telling people to stay inside
and shut doors and windows. Chanthu was upgraded from a tropical storm
after gathering strength over the South China Sea.
It
hit the Leizhou Peninsula in Guangdong province on Thursday, close to
the northeastern tip of the resort island province of Hainan. Shipping
between Hainan and the mainland had already been suspended and dozens
of flights cancelled according to Xinhua. Tens of thousands of boats
are taking shelter in ports.
At
least 701 people have died since the start of the year as a result of
torrential rains which have swept large parts of southern and central
China. More than 300 people are missing.
The scale of the
devastation, with more rain forecast, has raised fears of another mass
disaster on the scale of the 1998 Yangtze River floods, when more than
4,000 people died, though the government says it is now much better
prepared.
Premier Wen Jiabao, in comments published in Chinese
newspapers on Thursday, said the situation was serious and called for
greater disaster prevention efforts. "The country is now at a
crucial stage in fighting the floods, with water levels on the Yangtze
River, Huai River and Tai Lake surpassing safety limits. The situation
is very serious as typhoons are coming," Wen said.
Typhoon Conson skirted Hainan last week, killing two people, before heading into Vietnam.
China tries to stop Yellow Sea oil slick
Authorities in Liaoning
province in north-east China step up efforts to disperse major oil
slick by mobilising 800 fishing boats to help clean-up operation near
Dalian
Firefighters
work at the scene where a blast took place July 17, 2010 in Dalian,
Liaoning province of China. The port was engulfed but firefighters
extinguished the scene by Saturday morning, 15 hours after the blast
which hit two pipelinesChinaFotoPress/Getty Images
The Yangtze river continues beyond the Three Gorges dam in Zigui county, Hubei province, China. Photograph: ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images
China's
Three Gorges dam faces its biggest test this week as rain storms
threaten to swell upstream water levels beyond those that preceded the
Yangtze's last devastating flood in 1998.
Torrential downpours, which have claimed at least 146 lives since
the start of the month, have created the most serious challenge since
the world's biggest hydropower plant was completed two years ago.
"The levels of this flooding
will be higher than the historic floods of 1954 and 1998," Wei
Shanzhong, the head of the flood control and drought administration
office for the Yangtze river, told China Central TV.
According to the state media, the rain this week will increase the
peak flow in the reservoir to around 70,000 cubic metres per second (a staggering 70 million litres / second),
considerably higher than the 50,000 figure recorded in 1998, when
floods killed more than 4,000 people while the dam was still under
construction.
To ease the strain downstream, the dam will close its navigation
locks during the peak flow period, diverting the pressure to the giant
upstream reservoir.
In preparation for the deluge this week, hydroengineers have been
sluicing water out of the reservoir at an accelerated rate to make
space for the expected downpour. They believe there is little risk
that this reservoir will be stretched beyond its capacity because the
peak flow is expected to taper off more rapidly than in 1998. But if
the rains exceed forecasts, the dam – and its supporters – will come
under unprecedented pressure.
Earlier this year, site engineers acknowledged
that landslides and water pollution in the reservoir were more severe
than anticipated, prompting calls for drastic remedial efforts.
They recommended the relocation of a further 300,000 people - in
addition to the 1.2 million who have already been forced to leave their
homes - to create an "eco-buffer" belt in the worst affected areas.
China is buffeted by rainstorms and typhoons every summer. Last month, southern provinces were lashed by unusually fierce floods
that killed more than 200 people and forced the relocation of 2.4
million others, causing economic losses estimated at 29.6bn yuan
(£2.9bn).
Earlier this week, a mudslide in the mountainous northern province
of Shaanxi swallowed a village, leaving 20 missing and feared dead.
Adili Wuxor, known as
"Prince of the Tightrope", waves the Chinese national flag above the
"Bird's Nest" Olympic stadium in Beijing July 2, 2010. Adili on Friday,
completed his challenge to break the Guinness World Record for the
longest period of time spent living and walking on a tightrope. Adili
has been living in a cabin on the roof of the Bird's Nest for the past
60 days, spending 5 hours a day walking the tightrope. [Photo/Agencies]
Striking workers protest outside a Honda plant in Zhongshan, Guangdong province, in June. Photograph: Tyrone Siu/Reuters
Zhang Liwen found out that she was about to go on strike
over a breakfast of steamed buns and congee rice porridge at her
factory dormitory. Fifteen minutes later, she was taking part in
industrial action for the first time in her life.
"I was worried, but everyone was excited and determined," recalls
the 21-year-old migrant worker at the Denso car parts plant in China's
southern province of Guangdong. "We started our shift at the normal
time, but instead of working we just walked around and around the
workshop for eight hours. The managers asked us to return to our jobs,
but nobody did."
The next day she and the rest of the 1,000-strong workforce
repeated the demonstration at the Japanese-owned factory, which makes
parts for Toyota and Honda. This time, the corporate union begged them
to go back to work. Again they refused.
There was no chanting, no speeches, no violence. When the workers
got tired, they sat down and chatted for a few minutes. Then they got
up and carried on walking until the end of the shift, marked their time
cards and went home.
Industrial action does not get much lower key than this, nor does
it get much more significant. The Denso strike was reported across the
world because it took place on the frontline between global labour and
global capital: workers in the workshop of the world had downed tools –
and won.
For almost three decades, the world's biggest corporations have
outsourced an increasing share of their manufacturing operations to
China, where they can benefit from cheap labour and lax regulation. In
rich nations this has helped to keep consumer prices low and corporate
profits high. In China it has meant workers having to endure a
worsening environment, tough conditions and wage rises that have failed
to keep pace with economic growth.
But Zhang (not her real name) was part of a recent wave of strikes
to have hit foreign companies, prompting speculation of a readjustment.
In the past two months workers have walked off production lines at
three Honda plants, a Toyota supplier, a Hyundai factory in Beijing, a
Taiwanese rubber products manufacturer in Shanghai and a Carlsberg
brewery in Chongqing. The latest action, last week, was at a Japanese
electronics firm, Tianjin Mitsumi, where workers crippled output with a
sit-in, complaining they were being asked to work extra hours for no
extra pay.
In almost every case the strikers have won at least a partial
victory. Zhang and her colleagues at Denso went back to work last week
after their Japanese bosses promised a rise in the monthly basic salary
from 1,300 yuan (£125) to 1,700 yuan. In addition, they will get a
bonus increase of 400 yuan per month.
Such successes have created a new cast of heroes for the global
labour movement. Business analysts are warning that consumer prices
might rise if the era of cheap Chinese goods is over.
The ruling Communist party – which has long since cast aside its
revolutionary Marxist origins – faces a conundrum. Not wanting to stir
up a Solidarity-like opposition, the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, has
publicly called for improved working conditions. The People's Daily,
the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist party, has hailed a "tipping
point" of relations between labour and capital. There are hopes that a
newly aspirational class of migrant workers might drive the economy
away from cheap labour and production, so that China could finally
leave behind its reliance on low-cost, high-polluting manufacturing.
Yet, off-stage, the authorities are terrified of instability and a
fall in foreign investment. The governor of Guangdong has been called
in to brief the politburo. Domestic reporters have been ordered to play
down their coverage of the strikes to minimise the risk of copycat
actions.
Perhaps for this reason, the workers who have won pay rises in
Guangdong are far from triumphant about their success. There is none of
the assertive militancy that was seen at the Yorkshire collieries in
the 1970s or the Gdansk shipyards in the 1980s. Nervous of
repercussions and suspicious of potential management spies, many
workers play down their actions. "We don't call it a strike. We just
say we stopped work," said Zhang.
"Nobody tells us who is leading the strike, because if everyone
knew then the management might find out and punish them," said another
22-year-old migrant worker. "Nobody told us there was going to be a
strike until it happened."
Off the record, workers said there had been a secret meeting the
day before the strike started on 21 June. Rather than leave a digital
record that could be traced back to their computers or mobile phones,
the organisers handed out leaflets stating their demands to the
management: an 800-yuan pay rise, the right to choose their own union
representatives and a guarantee that nobody would be punished for
striking.
On the day of the strike, the organisers were so cautious about
revealing themselves that the frustrated management encouraged the
official union to organise a vote for representatives so that they had
someone to negotiate with. It was not so much a Solidarity moment as a
stealth movement.
The Pearl River delta contains one of the world's densest clusters
of industrial estates. Many factories sit amid palm trees and vegetable
fields ringed by broad roads and power lines. Workers' dormitories sit
close by, easily identified by the workers' uniforms on the washing
lines and the many pairs of trainers left to air by the windows.
The new communities are almost identical. The city of Foshan's
"Car Assembly Town" is typical: a few broad low-rise factories, a
thicket of six-storey dormitories, an internet cafe, a mobile phone
shop, a bank and a small street of food kiosks selling noodles, fried
rice, boiled eggs and spicy stew. Off-duty workers with dyed hair,
jeans and trainers wander out from their new dormitory, carrying
umbrellas in a rainy season squall that sets the palm trees
blowing wildly.
The turnover of workers is spectacularly rapid. Few of the dozen
or so employees at Denso in Foshan and Honda Lock in Zhongshan are
older than 22. Many are in their teens. Most are women. Waiting in
ragged lines for the factory buses to come to pick them up from their
dormitories, they look like pupils on their way to school or teens
queuing up for a rock concert.
It hardly seems a hotbed of class war. "I felt guilty leaving the
production line. This has really hurt the company, and what hurts them
will hurt us," was a typical response from one young worker. But they
say rent, food and other living costs have risen faster than wages.
After seeing Taiwan's Foxconn electronics group raise salaries by more
than 60%, they pushed for similar benefits. The way they went about it
suggests changes may be afoot, albeit slowly.
Almost all of the employees at the affected firms in Guangdong
attended vocational schools, meaning they had a relatively high level
of education compared with the average in Guangdong. During the Honda
Lock dispute, they hired a legal consultant, Chang Kai, a lecturer at
Renmin University, to help them with negotiations.
Thanks to school networks, mobile phones and internet bulletin
boards, they are far better organised than the previous generation of
migrant workers. Their expectations are also very different. While
their parents were willing to "eat bitterness" so they could send money
to their desperately poor rural families, many of today's young workers
spend the bulk of their incomes on clothes and phones for themselves.
Demographics are on the side of labour. A bulge in the working-age
population has started to thin, which is changing the balance between
supply and demand. In recent years the flood of new migrants into
Guangdong has slowed. According to labour rights campaigners, this is
putting upward pressure on salaries.
"Labour shortages only existed because companies refused to offer
decent wages. As soon as a halfway decent salary and reasonable
benefits were offered, recruiters had no problem finding new hires,"
wrote Geoff Crothall in a blog for China Labour Bulletin.
Many workers are asking for independent collective representation.
Unions in China are usually funded by companies, staffed by management
and answerable to the Communist party. During an earlier strike at the
Honda plant in Zhongshan, union representatives fought workers,
injuring two of them. "The union is basically useless," said Zhou, one
of the workers who had been on the strike. "It was wrong of them to
beat us."
Given this background, labour activists predict more unrest. "I
think there will be more and more strikes. Workers have started to be
concerned about their rights as well as their incomes. They have begun
to realise that their economic poverty is due to their political
poverty," said Liu Kaiming at the Institute of Contemporary Observation.
Employers still have the upper hand in many firms. Many locals
believe Japanese companies have been targeted because they treat their
workers better than most factories in Guangdong. Local academics and
journalists say the pay and conditions at Honda and Toyota are better
than average in the province.
"I don't know why the Honda workers went on strike, because their
salaries and conditions are better than ours," said Chen Jian, a
24-year-old employee of the Yongtai Plastic factory, which is only a
few miles from the Japanese firm. "We are not satisfied but we will not
go on strike. Some workers tried that last year and they were all
fired. That is normal."
Additional reporting by Cui Zheng
2 new fires breaks out in north-east China forest 2010.06.29.
Two new fires broke out in The Greater Xing'an Mountains in
China's North-eastern province of Heilongjiang on Monday. Nine thousand
firefighters are combating the blaze.
One forest policeman says in some places the temperatures are too
high to approach. Most vegetation in the area consists of trees which
contain high levels of oil. And the continuing summer heat is making
the rescue efforts harder.
These two fires bring the total in the area to three, since Saturday,
although the first one has now been extinguished. The Greater Xing'an
Mountains house the biggest forest in China. There is a danger that
further fires will be triggered by thunder-storms from May to July.
Guizhou rescuers battle against the odds 2010.06.29.
Rescuers are going all out in their search for some 107 people who
were buried by a rainstorm-triggered landslide in southwest China's
Guizhou province. But local rescue headquarters say the chances of
survival are slim.
The landslide occurred at 2:30 p.m. Monday, in Dazhai Village,
Gangwu Township of Guanling County. Rescue work had to be suspended
later in the evening, due to the danger of further landslides.
More than 600 soldiers and local residents took part in the perilous
rescue operation, while others cleared the debris of the landslide
which fell onto the roads leading into the village. The government has
begun providing disaster relief, including drinking water, food and
tents, to the remaining evacuees. A further 1,200 villagers in six
communities of Dazhai are waiting to be evacuated.
Chinese President Hu Jintao's speech at the G20 summit in Toronto
has drawn world attention. Different comments emerged in different
papers soon after the summit concluded.
The Xinhua News Agency talked to Alan Alexandroff, the co-director
of the G20 Research Group. He says that a report shows China's efforts
to make the G20 an efficient organization. He says that President Hu's
speech also unveils China's support to the other developing nations,
which is very valuable. Hu Jintao's speech highlighted the problems in
China. Alexandroff says the comments are objective, which proves that
China faces challenges if it tries to maintain its economic growth.
China Daily quoted economists as saying that the reform of China's
currency exchange system is not only in the interests of its own
economy, but will also help ease the imbalance of international trade
and economy. But they also warned those developed countries who have
attempted to blame China for the imbalance in the world's economy not
to expect too much on China's currency exchange reform.
France's paper Le Monde says the G20 enables China to promote its
world status, and even play a major role, as the G20 is formed purely
out of economic factors.
World comments on Hu's speech
Alan Alexandroff, co-director of G20 Research Group
China's efforts to make G20 more efficient.
It's valuable that China is supportive to other developing nations.
China still faces challenges in economic development.
Foreign economists:
Reform of China's currency exchange system is beneficial to the world's economy.
Developed countries should not expect a high appreciation of the RMB.
G20 ---a good chance for China to promote its status.
By 4pm Wednesday Beijing time, the death toll from heavy rains and
floods in southern China has climbed to 211, with 119 others still
missing. The floods are the worst in 50 years for some regions.
The eight affected provinces are Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hubei,
Hunan, Guangdong, Sichuan and Guizhou. Chongqing Municipality and the
Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region have also been hit hard
Nearly 30 million people have been affected by the severe weather,
with more than 2.4 million evacuated. Millions hectares of farmland
have been flooded and more than 10 percent of crops have been
completely destroyed. The direct economic loss has hit 43 billion yuan.
Expo 2010 opening ceremony: spectacular fireworks display in China
Shanghai celebrated the opening of the 2010 World Expo with a
lavish riverside display of fireworks, fountains and lasers that
rivalled the launch of the Beijing Olympics in its extravagance
Top Chinese leaders, including President Hu Jintao, have spent
time with children's representatives at a museum in Beijing, to
celebrate International Children's Day. They event encourage youngsters
to be ambitious and pursue overall development.
This is probably one of the best times to be a child in China. As well as to be with children.
The Chinese president is like a kindly grandfather to the kids. He
took a break from heavy state affairs on Monday to join children from
home and abroad, at China Science and Technology Museum.
The president's tour is about vision, mission and values.
Figures from China Children and Teenagers' Fund show the country
has 360 million children. That's one sixth of the total number in the
world. Their rights and wellbeing always mean a great deal to the
nation.
Hu Jintao expressed holiday greetings to children of all ethnic
groups. He visited several science and technology exhibits, talking
with the kids from time to time, and joining them in interactive
programs.
While visiting the exhibit about safety education, the president
told the children always to protect themselves and help others in case
of emergency.
The kids told of their wishes to the president with a painting of
the future. 10-year-old Tsering Tendru, a volunteer Tibetan-Mandarin
interpreter well-known among Chinese after the Yushu earthquake, has a
special wish for his hometown.
Tsering Tendru, 10, said, "I hope to see a better Yushu after the rebuilding."
Chinese President Hu Jintao said, "Your wish is sure to become reality. And tell the people in your hometown about that."
Hu Jintao told the children that they are the driving force of
China's development in the future. He hopes they're always ready to
contribute their wisdom and strength to the nation's prosperity. He
also called for further exchanges between children from home and
abroad, to build a better world in the future. T
Chinese President Hu Jintao joins the children and delegates to the 6th National Congress of Chinese Young Pioneers to visit China Science and Technology Museum in Beijing, May 31, 2010.(Xinhua/Ju Peng)
Beijing in a sweat as China's economy overheats
China is struggling to contain the threat of an
overheating economy in the face of rising house prices, inflationary
wage increases and a continuing surge in money supply, the head of the
country’s second-largest bank has warned.
By Peter Foster and Adrian Michaels in Beijing 30.05.2010.
China is contending with a continuing surge in money supply
Guo Shuqing, chairman of China Construction Bank, said that the
latest figures for China’s M1 money supply – a key predictor of
inflation – had raised concerns that the country’s vast stimulus and
bank-lending was running too hot.
“I saw the figures for last month and M1 is still very high,
increasing 31pc from last year, which is one per cent higher than last
month,” he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. “We are seeing a lot of money coming to China which is creating a current and capital account surpluses.”
China’s regulators have introduced a raft of measures in recent
weeks in an attempt to cool down the economy, forcing banks to raise
the capital adequacy ratios and hitting second home buyers with
regulation designed to drive speculators out of the property market.
However, Mr Guo warned that the effectiveness of measures to cool
house prices, which have risen by up to 40pc this year in some major
cities, could be blunted by the massive reserves of cash still being
held by private developers. “Sales are falling but prices are not,” he
said. “Developers have a lot of cash, so they’re not too concerned at
the moment.”
“Property prices are definitely seeing something of a bubble, but
it differs from city to city. You can see prices going very high on the
coastline, but in the inland areas and western areas, even in
provincial capitals, it’s still not so high.”
China has moved quickly to apply the brakes after first quarter
figures showed the economy expanding at 11.6pc year-on-year, driving
down sentiments on the country’s benchmark Shanghai index, which has
fallen 27 per cent this year.
However, while loan growth is slowing from 2009, huge amounts of
fresh loans continues to pour into the Chinese economy with the total
outstanding loans still growing at a rate of 18pc this year.
After issuing 10 trillion yuan (£1 trillion) of new loans in 2009,
Chinese banks are targeted to inject another 7.5 trillion yuan this
year, a reduction but still nearly twice the 4.6 trillion yuan of the
loans disbursed in 2008.
Mr Guo warned that the continuing splurge in lending also raises
the risk of a sharp rise in non-performing loans among smaller Chinese
banks that have funded local government infrastructure projects, often
of dubious viability. “I think that small banks last year newly issued
loans grew even fast, some even doubled their liability and assets,” Mr
Guo said.
“At the moment the banks seem healthy but I think that small
banks, because we don’t know the structure of their assets, maybe have
got more risk exposures because they are growing too fast and their
risk management is not as good as big banks.
“And secondly because they are very small and their loans are
going to a more concentrated number of customers, that also could
definitely cause a problem.”
Mr Guo added that with such massive stimulus Chinese inflation,
currently running at 2.8pc, was at growing risk of rising. Almost all
the coastal provinces that make up China’s manufacturing heartland had
granted wage increases averaging 20pc this year.
Analysts add there is an increasing anecdotal evidence to suggest
that China’s official inflation figures do not reflect the true pace of
price rises being felt by people on the ground. The price of some
foodstuffs is up 20pc this year.
Tom Miller of the Dragonomics consultancy in Beijing said: “The
Chinese government recently mooted that food subsidies be handed out to
rural low-income families, which is a sure indication of the
government’s true concerns on inflation.
“The last time the government took that kind of measure was in
April 2008 when consumer price inflation hit 8pc for three months
running, which suggests the government knows that real inflation is
higher than the official numbers suggest.”
The growing inflationary strain has increased pressure in the
country for a rise in interest rates, a tool that China’s central
bankers have been reluctant to use for fear of damaging exporter
competitiveness and piling more burdens on the loan bills of already
over-stretched provincial governments.
However, Lu Feng, professor of economics at Beijing University,
said that time was running out for China’s monetary authorities to act.
“Although the Chinese government’s efforts to control inflation
are impressive, the prospects for fighting this inflation without
effectively addressing the problems of loose money are not very
encouraging,” he wrote this week on Forbes.com.
“In order to control inflationary pressures effectively, China
needs to use the policy instrument of interest rates as a matter of
urgency.”
Desert storm: Huge cloud of sand descends on Chinese village
Like a scene from a
Hollywood disaster movie, a towering cloud of sand dwarfs the rows of
uniform houses as it descends on a small village in central China.
Residents hid inside
their homes with their windows and doors locked shut as the dust storm
swept through the region advancing 70ft a minute.
On the move: A massive sand storm hits a
village in Golmud in the Qinghai Province. The region is near the edge
of the Gobi desert
Day turned to night as
tons of dust temporarily blocked out the sun and reduced visibility to
around 600ft. But suddenly the storm calmed and the mile-high cloud
settled back to Earth again, leaving villagers with a major clean-up
operation.
Golmud is home to 200,000
people with 140,000 living in the city centre. The new industrial city
is built on a flat expanse close to the borders of the Gobi desert,
which is the largest desert in Asia. Although not an ideal place to
live, tens of thousands of people have relocated there to work at the
salt lakes in the region.
But the prospect of a
good job and lots of living space comes at a price. Every spring strong
winds blow across the Gobi creating huge columns of dust and sand,
which are then dumped nearby. The dust can cause frequent power
blackouts, transport delays and respiratory illness.
These buildings didn't need their camouflage paint as the sand quickly hid the village from view in mid May
The massive sand storm swept along at 70ft a minute
The Gobi sand even
travels as far as Beijing, with nearly a million tons of desert blown
into the city each year. In March this year China's capital turned
orange during a particularly ferocious dust storm.
More than a quarter of
China - around one million square miles - is covered in sand with the
Gobi covering northern parts of the country.
The bad news for the
government is that the desert is growing despite their best efforts to
contain it. The process of desertification has been worsened by
over-grazing, deforestation, urban sprawl and an increasingly erratic
climate.
The Chinese Academy of
Sciences estimates that the number of sandstorms has jumped six-fold in
the past 50 years to two dozen a year.Around 80 per cent of them occur between March and May.
Unless the government can find an effective way to stop the desert from spreading these impressive storm scenes will continue.
Chinese engineers propose world's biggest hydro-electric project in Tibet
Mega-dam on Yarlung Tsangpo river would save 200m tonnes of CO2 but could spark conflict over downstream water supply
River on the roof of the world ... the Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra river. Photograph: Imaginechina
Chinese hydropower lobbyists are calling for construction of the
world's biggest hydro-electric project on the upper reaches of the
Brahmaputra river as part of a huge expansion of renewable power in the
Himalayas.
Zhang Boting, the deputy general secretary of the China
Society for Hydropower Engineering, told the Guardian that a massive
dam on the great bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo - the Tibetan name for the
river - would benefit the world, despite the likely concerns of
downstream nations, India and Bangladesh, which access water and power from the
river.
Zhang said research had been carried out on the project, but no
plan has been drawn up. But documents on the website of a government
agency suggest a 38 gigawatt hydropower plant is under consideration
that would be more than half as big again as the Three Gorges dam, with
a capacity nearly half as large as the UK's national grid.
"This dam could save 200m tonnes of carbon each year. We should
not waste the opportunity of the biggest carbon emission reduction
project. For the sake of the entire world, all the water resources than
can be developed should be developed." That CO2 saving would be over a
third of the UK's entire emissions.
The mega-facility is among more than 28 dams on the river that are
either planned, completed or under discussion by China, according to
Tashi Tsering, a Tibetan scholar of environmental policy at the
University of British Columbia.
Tsering publishes a map today of all of the projects that have been reported by Chinese newspapers and hydro-engineering websites.
From this, he concludes that the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra – until recently considered the last great undammed river in Tibet – will be the next focus of government efforts to increase the nation's power supply. One of them is a map of planned dams
showing a 38-gigawatt hydro-plant at Motuo on the website of Hydro
China, an influential government enterprise responsible for dam
construction. A separate State Grid map of future transmission lines
indicates the remote area will soon be connected to the rest of China's
power supply. Hydro China and State Grid declined requests for
clarification.
The government has not confirmed the existence of the scheme, but
Tsering cites several newspaper reports of survey teams exploring the
area and provides links to other online documents that indicate
preparations for large-scale hydro-development of the area.
Given the huge expense, technical difficulties and political
sensitivities of the scheme, it is far from certain of final approval
by the government. But several Chinese hydroengineers see it as the
ultimate goal in an accelerating race with India to develop water
resources in one of the planet's last remote regions.
Tapping the power of the river as it bends and plunges from the
Himalayan roof of the world down towards the Indian and Bangladeshi
flood plains has long been a dream of the world's hydro-engineers.
Along with the Congo river at the Inga falls, this is considered one of the two greatest concentrations of river energy
on earth, but it was long thought impossible to access because of the
rugged, high-altitude terrain and the risk of water-related conflict
with neighbouring countries.
But China has overcome many engineering obstacles with the
construction of the railway to Tibet, and its growing energy demands
are spurring exploration of ever more remote areas.
"Tibet's resources will be converted into economic advantage," Yan
Zhiyong, the general manager of China Hydropower Engineering Consulting
Group, told China Energy News earlier this year. "The major technical
constraints on damming the Yarlung Tsampo have been overcome." He
declined the Guardian's request for an interview, saying the subject
was too sensitive.
The exploitation of the Brahmaputra is already under way. China
recently announced plans to build five dams further upstream, including
a 500MW hydroplant at Zangmu, which is under construction by the power
utility Huaneng.
According to Tsering, the biggest of them will be a huge plant at
the great bend – either at Metog, known as Motuo in Chinese, or at
Daduqia. The former would involve the construction of a series of
tunnels, pipes, reservoirs and turbines to exploit the spectacular
2,000-metre fall of the river as it curls down towards India.
Although there has been no official confirmation of plans for a dam, the discussion is far from secret. On a prominent Chinese science forum,
Zhang said a dam on the great bend was the ultimate hope for water
resource exploitation because it could generate energy equivalent to
100m tonnes of crude coal, or all the oil and gas in the South China
sea.
He warned that a delay would allow India to tap these resources
and prompt "major conflict" in a region where the two nations have
sporadically clashed over disputed territory.
"We should build a hydropower plant in Motuo ... as soon as
possible because it is a great policy to protect our territory from
Indian invasion and to increase China's capacity for carbon reduction,"
he wrote last year
Any step forward is likely to be controversial. Tibetans consider
Metog a sacred region, and environmental activists warn against
building such a huge project in a seismically active and ecologically
fragile area.
"A large dam on the Tibetan plateau would amount to a major,
irreversible experiment with geo-engineering," said Peter Bosshard of
International Rivers. "Blocking the Yarlung Tsangpo could devastate the
fragile ecosystem of the Tibetan plateau, and would withhold the
river's sediments from the fertile floodplains of Assam in north-east
India, and Bangladesh."
China's construction of dams also raises the prospect of a race
with India to develop hydropower along south Asia's most important
river.
"India needs to be more aggressive in pushing ahead hydro projects
(on the Brahmaputra)," Jairam Ramesh, the Indian environment minister,
told the Guardian during a recent visit to Beijing. "That would put us in better negotiating position (with China).
To minimise the risk of water-related conflict, the two nations
have agreed to share information about hydro-plans on the
Tsangpo-Brahmaputra.
Indian media have raised concerns that Beijing may ultimately
embark on a gigantic diversion scheme that would channel water away
from India to the dry northern plains of China, but such fears are
dismissed by Tsering, who says the dam at Metog would be for
hydropower, not water diversion. "The laws of physics will not allow
water diversion from the Great Bend."
Scientists call for GM review after surge in pests around cotton farms in China
Farmland struck by infestations of bugs following widespread adoption of Bt cotton made by biotech giant Monsanto
Workers unload bags of cotton from fields in Korla, China's far west Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images
Scientists are calling for the long-term risks of GM
crops to be reassessed after field studies revealed an explosion in
pest numbers around farms growing modified strains of cotton.
The unexpected surge of infestations "highlights a critical need" for better ways of predicting the impact of GM crops and spotting potentially damaging knock-on effects arising from their cultivation, researchers said.
Millions of hectares of farmland in northern China
have been struck by infestations of bugs following the widespread
adoption of Bt cotton, an engineered variety made by the US biotech
giant, Monsanto.
Outbreaks of mirid bugs, which can devastate around 200 varieties
of fruit, vegetable and corn crops, have risen dramatically in the past
decade, as cotton farmers have shifted from traditional cotton crops to
GM varieties, scientists said.
Traditional cotton famers have to spray their crops with
insecticides to combat destructive bollworm pests, but Bt cotton
produces its own insecticide, meaning farmers can save money by
spraying it less.
But a 10-year study across six major cotton-growing regions of
China found that by spraying their crops less, farmers allowed mirid
bugs to thrive and infest their own and neighbouring farms.
The infestations are potentially catastrophic for more than 10m
small-scale farmers who cultivate 26m hectares of vulnerable crops in
the region studied.
The findings mark the first confirmed report of mass infestations
arising as an unintended consequence of farmers using less pesticide –
a feature of Bt cotton that was supposed to save money and lessen the
crops' environmental impact. The research, led by Kongming Wu at the
Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing, is published in
the US journal, Science.
Environmental campaigners seized on the study as further evidence
that GM crops are not the environmental saviour that manufacturers have
led farmers to believe.
In the past decade, farmers in India and elsewhere have noticed
that herbicide-tolerant GM crops have developed resistance to pesticide
sprays, again reducing the benefits of the crops,
While many countries around the world have embraced GM crops, they
have never taken root in Britain, where multinational companies have
faced protests and vandalism to crop trials in recent years. Britain's
large-scale field trials of herbicide-tolerant GM crops in 2003 found
changes in herbicide use had an impact on weeds and insects that might
also affect country wildlife.
Dr Wu's team monitored insecticide use from 1992 to 2008 at 38
farms throughout the six northern Chinese provinces of Henan, Hebei,
Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong and Shanxi. They also kept records of mirid
bug populations at the farms between 1997 and 2008. Before switching
to GM cotton, farmers used more broad-spectrum insecticides to kill
bollworms and other pests. But as more farmers began growing Bt cotton,
their use of sprays declined, leading to a steady rise in pests,
including mirid bugs.
Over the decade-long study, cotton farms flipped from being a
grave for mirid bugs to a source of the pests, where populations grew
rapidly and then spilled out to feed on a variety of flowering crops in
neighbouring farms.
Bt cotton is modified to produce a natural insecticide that is made by a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis. The toxin specifically targets bollworms, which can devastate cotton yields.
Additional reporting by Celia Cole
BT cotton timeline
1990: Cotton plants genetically engineered to produce enough Bt toxin (derived from the Bacillus thuringiensis bacterium) to be protective against insects
1996: First Bt cotton varieties, known as Bollgard Cotton in US,
introduced commercially by Monsanto, and Delta and Pine Land Company
1997: China begins cultivating Bt cotton, increasing area of the crop planted to 1.8m hectares worldwide
2003: Britain's large scale field trials of herbicide tolerant GM
crops. Showed that changes in herbicide use had an impact on weeds and
insects that might also affect country wildlifem hectares worldwide
2009: 49% of cotton production worldwide is Bt cotton, or 16m hectares
2010: No GM crops grown commercially in the UK. Spain is the
biggest grower in Europe, but there are also significant amounts of
crops grown in France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and
Portugal.
The Wenchuan earthquake took 87,000 lives two years ago. Our
reporter Feng Jinchao went to Beichuan County, one of the
worse-affected regions, to see how things have changed in the last 24
months.
It is a land of misery. Two years ago, in this county, the
earthquake killed 15-thousand people. It crumbled houses, destroyed the
whole town, and changed everyone's world. Now, mourners gather in the
damaged town to pay tribute to their lost relatives. They pile flowers
and burn candles and sticks of incense amid the smoke and crackle of exploding firecrackers.
He Yumei, earthquake survivor, Beichuan, said, "I lost most than
10 relatives in the quake, including my husband, my sisters and
sister-in-law." He Yumei cannot forget the horrifying moment.
Suddenly, without warning, with a loud sound and a hard shake, houses
turned to rubble and her relatives never came out. Now He Yumei lives
with her parents-in-law, in a house rented in nearby Mianyang city.
Speaking of her future, she seems uncertain.
He Yumei said, "I'm already 44. I don't know what to do. I think
what I can do is take good care of old ones and children. I can't think
of anything else."
He Yumei is one of the many that has sad stories to tell. For
them, the past is what they want to forget, but is also what they want
to remember.
20 kilometers away from Beichuan County, a new town has been built
by the aid from Shandong Province. It is the resettlement for the
Beichuan people, called Yongchang County. East China's Shandong
Province, poured more than 700 million dollars into rebuilding this new
county.
Sha Xiangdong, director of Aid-Beichuan Construction office,said,
"This is the second project aided by our city. It could provide 44
buildings, 891 houses for the Beichuan people. We are constructing
buildings under the principles of high quality and low cost. We plan to
deliver the houses by the end of August."
The new town features all modern functions, such as a water supply
plant, a hospital, a retirement home, and an elementary school. The
town will be the new home for nearly 40-thousand Beichuan residents who
lost their homes in the quake.
Construction worker Liu Fei said, "We build these houses under top
quality requirements. As a worker from Shandong, I came to Beichuan and
saw the horrible scene. I want to finish the construction quickly so
the Beichuan people can move in as soon as possible."
The Beichuan people will be living in their new homes this year.
It's a new beginning for these people. Although it is not easy for them
to forget what they have encountered, as time goes by, finally the
victims will rest in peace, and the survivors should embrace their new
life.
Shaolin Temple to open "hospital"
(Xinhua) Updated: 2010-05-14 00:32
ZHENGZHOU
-- China's Shaolin Temple, home of the famous kung fu monks, is to get
its own "hospital" to help promote the unique Shaolin medical culture,
a Shaolin monk said Thursday.
The Land and Resources
Administration of Dengfeng City, Henan Province, had approved the plan
for a medical facility to be run by Shaolin's pharmaceutical bureau,
said Shi Yanlin, director of the bureau.
The non-profit institution, covering more than 9 hectares, was planned for the foot of Mount Taishi, about 3 km from the
temple.
Construction, which would be fully funded by the temple, was expected to be finished in two years.
Shaolin monks who had passed state examinations in pharmaceuticals and massage would treat patients at the facility, Shi said.
The "hospital" would offer free diagnosis, acupuncture, massage and some of the medicines would be free.
"The purpose of setting up the hospital is to promote the culture of Zen medicine," he said.
Zen,
kung fu and medicine were three important elements of Shaolin culture,
and the "hospital" was expected to help promote the little known
Shaolin medicine, Shi said.
The bureau was established in 1217,
diagnosing and treating diseases in monks and local residents. It has
focused on medical education and prevention of diseases, through diet
and other natural means.
The key construction of the planned institution would be a Zen training court rather than an outpatient building,
said Shi.
The
monk said Shaolin would seek cooperation with companies in producing
some of its secret remedies and the facility would also welcome Western
medical practices if they proved helpful.
But endoscopy would not be accepted because the method runs counter to Shaolin's theory of health cultivation, Shi said.
Beijingers feel the heat, finally
By Wang Qian (China Daily) Updated: 2010-05-03 09:39
BEIJING - A sudden heat wave brought most
Beijingers outside during the May Day holiday and pushed the
temperature to 32.2 C on Saturday, the hottest May Day in four decades.
Be forewarned though, rainy days are about to cool off the coming week.
A
foreign girl dances on Saturday in Tongzhou Canal Park in Beijing. The
temperature hit 32.2 Catnoon, the hottest May Day since 1966. Zou Hong / China Daily
The China Meteorological Administration
predicted mild to heavy rain will fall over the next three days in most
parts of the country, with temperatures dropping by 4 to 8 C in
Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Northeast China.
The capital will welcome rain in Tuesday
night, along with a slight dip in temperature, said Guo Hu, head of the
Beijing Meteorological Bureau.
Guo said Beijing experienced a sudden
surge of 20 C over the past week, but the temperature will bounce back
and forth before the real summer settles in.
In meteorological terms, summer means the
temperature surpasses 22 C for five continuous days, so it is too early
to say the capital has entered the summer season.
On Sunday, the mercury in Beijing hit
31 C, said Sun Jisong, the chief forecaster in the capital's
meteorological bureau. But the sky is a little yellow due to the coming
cold air, which is bringing dust, wind and rain, he said.
Many residents donned T-shirts, shorts and skirts to embrace the "summer" May Day holiday.
Wu Xiaosong, a Beijing photographer wearing
jeans and a white T-shirt with jacket in hand, said he was soaked with
sweat on Sunday afternoon.
"The summer seems to have come
overnight," he said, adding most of the people he shot pictures of on
Saturday looked ready for summer.
With the temperature surge during the May
Day holiday, cotton-like fluff coming off poplar and willow trees in
late April and May every year in Beijing is bringing the city a "spring
time snow".
The fluff, known as catkins, comes from
small seed pods that burst as the weather warms up. They fly
everywhere, bringing fun as well as trouble to local residents.
"I bought an ice cream to cool myself down,
but my first bite was this white, cotton-like stuff," a local resident
Wang Yan said on Sunday afternoon, pointing at her melting ice cream.
The sudden rise in temperature in the
capital, a long-lasting drought in Southwest China and a rare cold wave
sweeping northern parts of the country all tell of frequent extreme
weather.
Wu Disheng, a senior expert with the State
Oceanic Administration, told Guangzhou Daily on Sunday that the weather
phenomenon El Nino in the Pacific Ocean in 2009 has led to the recent
extreme weather events.
El Nino is characterized by warming in
the Pacific Ocean, which occurs every two to seven years and may last
for about a year. It is often associated with floods, droughts and
other abnormal weather events.
Wu said the warming temperature in the
Pacific Ocean caused the warm air mass to move into Southwest China,
raising the temperature and leading to the severe drought.
"The climate feature this year is that
average temperatures across the country will be lower than usual, with
more precipitation and a large possibility of floods," Wu was quoted as
saying.
The China Meteorological Administration
said heavy rains will hit Shaanxi, Sichuan, Henan, Hubei and Hunan on
Tuesday and rainstorms will later hit some parts of South China, with
heavy rains in Liaoning, Jinlin and Inner Mongolia.
Besides floods, seven to nine typhoons are
expected to hit China in 2010, more than 2009, due to the movement of a
warm air mass near the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea, Wu said.
Premier Wen encourages young people
BEIJING - 2010.05.03. Premier Wen Jiabao
on Tuesday told youths to aim high and make concrete efforts to achieve
their goals as he spent this year's Youth Day with students from the
prestigious Peking University.
Wen arrived at the campus Tuesday morning
while various clubs and societies, ranging from mountain climbing,
astronomy, career development to charity, were holding shows and
performances to mark the day.
At the calligraphy and painting society
section, a philosophy student named Li Danlin gave Premier Wen her
calligraphy work of four characters: yang wang xing kong (look up to
the starry sky), which is the title of a widely-known Chinese poem
written by Wen to encourage young people to aim high and pursue their
goals fearlessly.
Wen added another four characters to the work: jiao ta shi di, which means be earnest and down-to-earth.
This
year's May 4 marks the 91th anniversary of the "May Fourth Movement,"
an important cultural and political movement in Chinese history that
fought imperialism and promoted democracy and science.
"In
memory of the May Fourth Movement, we should first inherit the spirits
of science and democracy, which are essential for us to build socialism
with Chinese characteristics and achieve modernization," Wen said as he
visited the university's library.
Wen
told students to keep the spirits of science and democracy in their
daily life and increase their responsibilities to the country and the
people.
"Big goals, noble-minded moralities,
profound knowledge, a healthy body and great personalities -- that's
what I expect of you and myself too," Wen said to the students, adding
that one needs great expectations and a hardworking spirit to walk the
long road of life that has many obstacles.
"When I was young, it was my dream to
realize development, equity and justice in the country. You need carry
on what my generation hasn't finished... The load on your shoulders
will be heavy," Wen said.
In
response to questions on university education, Wen said, "the country's
university reform aims to create a sound environment for students to
think independently and strive for innovation."
"I'd
like to sit and talk with young people on every Youth Day in an earnest
manner. What's spoken in earnest will be forever," said Wen. When he
departed, thousands of students lined the road, bidding him farewell.
Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao talks to students during his visit to Peking University in
Beijing, May 4, 2010. Wen on Tuesday told youths to aim high and make
concrete efforts to achieve their goals as he spent this year's Youth
Day with students from the prestigious Peking University. [Photo/Xinhua]
Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao talks to students during his visit to Peking University in
Beijing, May 4, 2010. Wen on Tuesday told youths to aim high and make
concrete efforts to achieve their goals as he spent this year's Youth
Day with students from the prestigious Peking University. [Photo/Xinhua]
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has lunch with students during his visit to Peking University in Beijing, May 4, 2010. [Photo/Xinhua]
Tourism drying upBy Erik Nilsson (China Daily) 2010-04-26
Villagers washing clothes near a traditional roofed-bridge in Liping
county. Such bridges are a common sight in the Dong villages of Guizhouprovince in Southwest China. Erik Nilsson / China Daily
An
industry that provided a buffer from the drought in Guizhou, is slowly
seeing a fall in visitor numbers. Erik Nilsson reports
Lu Xingtao says she hasn't felt the impact of living in one of Guizhou province's most severely drought-stricken counties.
That's
because Liping's emergent tourism industry has afforded the 27-year-old
ethnic Dong, and many other villagers in Jintang, greater independence
from the rule of the planting season. "Now, I sing and play pipa to
entertain visitors rather than farming, so I don't notice the drought's
influence in my life," she says.
Lu
says that tourism has not only protected her from the impact of the
drought but also has helped preserve local customs. "We don't need to
become migrant workers anymore," says the singer, who previously worked
in textile factories in big cities.
Lu
earns several hundred yuan more per month than she did as a migrant
worker, she says. "Now, we can stay here and preserve our traditional
way of life."
But
while Guizhou's travel industry has largely shielded Jintang's 2,000
residents from the impact of the worst drought in six decades, the
drought is now causing the number of tourists visiting the region to
start evaporating.
Guizhou's
tourism had undergone double-digit growth until April, when the drought
caused the stream of visitors to begin drying up, the provincial
tourism bureau's director Fu Yingchun says. "Some travelers are
deciding against coming here because they believe the drought might
create poor conditions," Liping's tourism bureau director Zhang
Yongxian explains. "Also, local people had to undertake responsive
measures to mitigate the drought's impact, which detracted from their
work hosting visitors."
Zhang
says that the county, where tourist numbers have grown 20 to 25 percent
annually since 2003, is a microcosm of the province in terms of the
drought's impact on travel.
Longli town, in Guizhou's lushly forested east, is yet to feel the
full impact of the drought. Erik Nilsson / China Daily
While
the provincial figures for 2010 haven't yet been released, Guizhou's
tourism brought in 80.5 billion yuan ($11.8 billion) last year, a 23
percent increase over 2008. About 104 million tourists visited the
province in 2009, up 27.5 percent year-on-year, government figures
show.
Hardest
hit has been western Guizhou, where the drought is more severe. Visits
to the area decreased by 40 percent year-on-year, Fu says, without
revealing last year's figures. The number of tourists traveling to
Tianlong Tunbao village, a major attraction 50 km outside of the
provincial capital Guiyang, has dropped by 70 percent compared to 2009,
Fu says.
Even
Guizhou's lushly forested east, where the drought is less severe, has
also received fewer travelers. Libo village's tourist inflow has shrunk
by 10 percent, while numbers have also dropped in Leishan and Xijiang,
he explains.
But
Fu insists most tourists' concerns about scenery, services and comfort
are unfounded or exaggerated. Part of the problem, he says, is that
many online media have "falsely reported" that the iconic Huangguoshu
Waterfall - Asia's largest - has "run completely dry".
The provincial government is now introducing measures to reinvigorate tourism.
From
April 20 until May 31, two in 10 tour group members can travel for
free, as can one in 10 lone travelers. 2010 World Expo ticket holders
can enjoy 300 yuan to 500 yuan off travel routes from July 1 to Dec 1,
and get 50 percent off all attractions in Guiyang from May 1 to Dec 31.
In
addition, the government will attend the tourism exchange meeting in
Chongqing in early May. And it will create a conspicuous presence at
the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, targeting both foreigners and East
China residents.
Pan
Peihua, an 18-year-old ethnic Dong woman, will be among nine young
Xiaohuang villagers to perform in the Dong Grand Chorus, for which the
ethnic group is famous, at the Expo in Shanghai.
Pan
has already visited France and accompanied Premier Wen Jiabao to Japan
with the performance troupe. However, as many of the attractions most
affected are in villages, Guizhou's marketing will focus on the
countryside.
"Rural tourism will be a key point of our programs to help farmers cope with the losses caused by the drought," he says.
Although
the drought has had little environmental impact in Jintang - mostly
because of government countermeasures, such as providing free water -
it has resulted in a decrease in the number of visitors. The exact
figures aren't yet available.
The
industry accounts for 10 percent of the county's GDP. The 930,000
visitors, including 30,000 from overseas, brought in 190 million yuan
($27.8 million) in revenue last year, Liping tourism bureau's Zhang
explains.
Local incomes have increased by 20 to 25 percent since tourism started taking off in 2003, he says.
Jintang's
Party chief Shou Yixing says that while the tourism has flourished, it
can't insulate everyone in the village from the drought's impact. "Our
tourism is still in its early stages, and many people still depend on
farming," he explains.
GUILIN, April 22 (Xinhua) -- A freak spring flood has killed two
people and forced 8,872 to flee their homes in a southern Chinese city,
local authorities said Thursday.
Torrential rain, which fell from Monday to Thursday, also led to the
collapse of 1,275 houses in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region,
according to the flood control and drought relief headquarters in
Guilin.
Yangshuo county in Guilin recorded the largest rainfall of more than 101 mm from Monday to early Tuesday.
"The flood waters in our county are more than 10 meters high," said a villager surnamed Jiang from Quanzhou County of Guilin.
The two dead, Jiang Jiayou and Tang Jiyu, were from Quanzhou County, Guilin Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau said in a statement.
Jiang, 76, was checking his old home, where no one lived, Tuesday
and was crushed to death when the house collapsed. Tang, 46, drowned in
flash flood while trying to remove his belongings from his house at 2
a.m. Tuesday, it said.
Shipping on the Lijiang River was halted after its water level rose to 147.1 meters, 1.4 meters above the warning level.
The flood, the earliest on record, caused direct economic losses of
68 million yuan (10 million U.S. dollars). Floods usually come in May
and June, according to local meteorological authorities.
Beijing: The Chinese flag flies at half-mast in Tiananmen Square
Photograph: ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images
Respect for the value of life
By Xie Dehao (Chinadaily.com.cn) Updated: 2010-04-21
Today the Five-Star Red Flag is flown at half-mast and the whole nation mourns for quake victim
From Wenchuan to Yushu earthquake, the
consensus that life must be respected has been reached by the nation. A
national day of mourning held in the name of the whole country not only
shows the respect for life, but also manifests the toughness and turns
grief into strength.
Rescue
efforts are still going on in Yushu. Love envelops the quake zone. From
mushroomed relief tents to children's voices resounding through
classrooms in the mobile panel house; from the continuous flow of aid
to the pledge of “new campuses and new homes,” all of these displays
the national responsibility and strength, which just stem from
citizens’ supreme respect for the value of civilian lives.
No awe of life, no respect for human
beings; no mourning for the deceased, no appreciation of life. Giving
first priority to ordinary people’s lives and dignity is not only a
rational return to the value of life, but also the application of
government's "people oriented" policy.
Now we hope that the national attitude to
respect people and their lives could really evolve into an
institutional public action. We cannot escape from bigger disasters in
the future, but the dignity of life and the progress of human beings
could be refined into a civilized institution.
Let's mourn today and remain tough tomorrow.
Drought turns southern China into arid plain
The government has embarked on a massive rain-making operation, firing thousands of cloud-seeding rockets into the sky
It is hard to imagine a less fitting environment for a mollusc than the arid plain of Damoguzhen in south-west China. There is not a drop of water
in sight. The baked and fissured earth resembles an ancient desert. Yet
shellfish are scattered here in their thousands; all so recently
perished that shriveled, blackened bodies are still visible inside
cracked, opened shells.
Far out of water, the aquatic animals are not the advance guard of evolutionary progress; but the victims of a drought
that has devastated their habitat and now threatens the livelihoods of
millions of people in surrounding regions. The Chinese government is so
worried about the drought that it has embarked on a massive rain-making
operation, involving firing thousands of shells and rockets into the
sky to seed clouds.
Until last summer, Damoguzhen was home to a lake that stretched
across a mile-wide expanse of water in Yunnan, a southern Chinese
province famed for its mighty rivers, moist climate and beautiful views.
Today, it joins 310 reservoirs, 580 rivers and 3,600 pools that have
been baked dry by a once-in-a-century drought that is evaporating
drinking supplies, devastating crops and stirring up political tensions
over dam construction, monoculture plantations and cross-border water
management in south-east Asia. Linking specific weather events to
human-caused climate change is impossible, but the drought is consistent with what climate scientists expect to see more of in future.
Hardest hit are local farmers such as Ying Yuexian, who has seen
her tobacco and rice crop shrivel up over a six-month period that has
seen record high temperatures and half the usual amount of rain. "In
February, the water dried up completely," said the 34-year-old,
surveying the parched expanse where she once fished. "It turned into
this overnight." Instead of drawing water from the lake, she now
scrapes soil from its cracked bed in the hope that the nutrients can
replenish the earth on her sun-blasted farmland.
Her husband, Zhu Chongqing, estimates that the family's annual
income will halve this year and the situation could get worse because
the wet season is not due for another month. "We are waiting for the
rain. We dare not plant rice or tobacco before that, but the drought
continues" he said. "I've never experienced anything like this."
It is a similar story across the region. Older villagers say
reservoirs and irrigation channels are dry for the first time in their
lives. Mountain communities have to walk hours each day to secure
drinking supplies. Rationing has been introduced in many areas,
affecting more than 20 million people, 15m animals and 2m hectares of
farmland.
With its mighty rivers and steep gorges, south-west China is the
world's biggest hydro-electric powerhouse, but reservoir levels have
fallen so low this year that 60% of dams report a decline in
electricity output. This forces industrial estates and cities to burn
more coal and emit more carbon to make up the shortfall.
Commodity values are also rising. In the giant rubber plantations
of Xishuangbanna, farmers report a sharp fall in production that has
pushed up prices by 40%. "Less water means less rubber," said Zhang
Xiaoping a rubber farmer. "In a good year, I can collect 80kg a day
from these 300 trees, but I am down to half that now."
According to local media, sugar prices are up 10% because of the
impact on cane fields. Rice and broad beans are also more expensive.
Wildlife is threatened because Yunnan - one of the most biodiverse
regions on earth - is a last refuge for many species that are extinct
elsewhere.
Conservationists say birds have migrated, elephants moved to new
territory and many big mammals are ranging further to secure water.
Reptiles and plants are most vulnerable. "We are hearing stories from
nature reserves that amphibians are dying," said Wu Yusong of the Worldwide Fund for Nature's
Yunnan office. "We are still in the process of monitoring the situation
but we know that half the agricultural crops in this region cannot be
harvested this year so we can imagine that other plants will be also be
similarly affected."
The government says it has earmarked more than 7 billion yuan
(£700m) for relief projects, mobilised 7,600 water trucks and dug
180,000 wells to alleviate the impact.
It has also launched a massive weather modification operation. In a
single week, the authorities fired over 10,000 silver nitrate shells
and over 1,000 rockets into the clouds to induce rain, according to
Zheng Guoguang, head of the China Meteorological Administration.
Short bursts of rain have mitigated the problem in some areas, but the overall picture remains grim and the causes contentious.
On stretches of the Mekong river, water levels are at 50-year
lows, spurring criticism from downstream nations that China's
hydropower expansion has siphoned off supplies that should be preserved
for drinking water and fishing.
At the first summit this week of the Mekong River Commission,
which comprises Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, the Chinese vice
minister, Song Tao, insisted climate change rather than his country was
to blame. "Statistics show that the recent drought that hit the whole
river basin is attributable to the extreme dry weather, and the water
level decline of the Mekong River has nothing to do with hydropower
development," he said.
But environment activists inside China say dams and other forms of
accelerated development are taking an excessive ecological toll. "Dams
and plantations are not to blame for the extreme weather, but they
worsen the impact of the drought and the competition for water
resources," said Yang Yong, an explorer and geologist. "The government
now realises the problems and should reconsider its plans for water
resource management."
"In recent years, the focus of dam construction has been on power
generation, but we have neglected the needs of flood prevention and
irrigation," said Wang Yongchen of Green Earth Volunteers.
The drought has also raised fresh doubts about the wisdom of
China's biggest hydro-engineering project, the South-North water
diversion scheme, which is designed to channel billions of tonnes to
arid northern cities such as Beijing and Tianjin.
This made sense while the south enjoyed more abundant water
resources, but climatologists are now warning that north and south
China could suffer simultaneous droughts.
The National Climate Centre estimates 10 downpours will be needed
to alleviate the water shortage in the south. This is not forecast for
at least another month.
With the prospect of prolonged dry spells in the future, Liu Ning,
vice-minister of water resources, told local media it may be necessary
to move people from the most vulnerable areas.
"They can go to cities, or places with more water. If droughts
continue for several more years, we think we can use the nation's power
to relocate them to other provinces."
If you have any feedback on how we can make our new website better please do contact us and we would like to hear from you.
Play Video
2010.07.22. 
The Yangtze river continues beyond the Three Gorges dam in Zigui county, Hubei province, China. Photograph: ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images 
Jonathan Watts The Observer
Play Video
Play Video
Play Video
Play Video
Play Video
Play Video
1 / 12 
