Coronavirus: China villagers faced pandemic and now floods - Los Angeles Times

The storm hit. out of battery. But the mother refused to leave. When he watched the news continue to rise, her son kept on the phone. The stream broke through the dam, swallowed farmland, and rushed into the village. Houses poured into the stream.

According to official data, this is the worst flood in decades. It is one of many floods that have ravaged southern and central China since early June, forcing millions of people to evacuate, destroying more than 28,000 houses and killing 141 people. Dead or missing.

Water flew over her second floor, but Zhang Meifeng, 67, didn't want to leave. She had heard this sound of water before. This is the house that her husband and son spent 20 years saving to build. they are

She spends most of the year far away from her hometown. Her husband works as a woodworker in Zhejiang Province and her son works as a salesman in Hainan.

"We make a little money and endure hardship. You can make a little money, and you can save a little," she said. The life achievement of her family is 3.5 stories high. It has a spiral staircase, wooden furniture and a layered chandelier. They spent $10,000 to build it, and it was completed last year, but they still have debts.

"I want to stay and take care of our home," Zhang told his son. This was a call from Hainan before her cell phone battery was dead. She dragged the TV and other electronic equipment upstairs step by step and cried.

On the third day, her son came in by boat and took her away. Zhang insisted on returning a few days later, using a volunteer team from Ningbo to provide his neighbors with a bucket of treasures and a box of drinking water on the rescue boat. Her son came to help move the furniture to a higher position.

The rain has stopped, and a large number of soldiers have been sent to support the dam and embankment before the next storm. But in the flooded village in Poyang County, where the land is vast, the house dreams come true, and NGOs are rescuing families.

Zhang and two volunteers sit in Zhejiang Province and work as daytime shopkeepers and tutors. They put their time and money into a small team, equipped with two inflatable boats.

"Duck!" They cried when the boat passed just 2 or 3 feet above the wire. The sunlight glare from the hazy water. A little snake bent over and walked away. The farm became the sea. The wooded garbage floated on the treetops, piercing the treetops. In one place, a house tilted into the water at a 45-degree angle.

When the boat entered Zhangjia Village, a cat yelled somewhere and was trapped. Zhang pointed out that her female son glanced at the neighbors. They were still standing on the balcony or rowing on the bamboo raft, running between their houses and the town, as if the destruction to them only required simple daily routines. Just adjust. .

When they arrived at Zhang's house, she climbed three floors and then entered a small attic. She stuffed something in her purse. Her son whispered: "She left several thousand dollars in cash." "She couldn't sleep in the last few nights."

Most of the villagers in rural Jiangxi Province who had to deal with the coronavirus earlier this year are old farmers or their grandsons. The house is large and empty, and is raised by the elderly

By parents who

Go home once a year

When flooding last week, many people recalled that in 1998, the last heavy rain caused the rising river to break through the dam.

The flooding of the Yangtze River that year killed more than 3,000 people and made 14 million people homeless on the plains. In Po Yang, many houses made of wood collapsed, including Zhang's house. At that time, she had brought two children by herself, and her husband worked far away. Displaced villagers hide under plastic tarps, and their trapped cows and pigs grind around them.

After 1998, China invested a lot of money in flood control, especially along the Yangtze River. But in some smaller places, such as Zhangyang Lake (China’s largest freshwater lake, currently at a warning level of nearly 10 feet, and the peak of further flooding) low-lying area Zhangjia Village, the management of the floodplain is sometimes due to greed and Weakened by incompetence.

The villagers said that when the “big leaders” visited, local officials acted responsibly, but otherwise allowed shoddy construction transactions. They also said that the relief funds allocated by the central government have been eroded by layers of corruption.

"This has never given us the hands of ordinary people," Zhang's son Gao said, and he asked not to use his full name.

A few miles from Zhangjia Village, a contracted farmer named Sheng scattered rice grains on the dry road. Behind him, the road disappeared into the water. His 330 acres were flooded around him like a muddy shawl. A damaged dike that was supposed to be upgraded last year has been half completed.

"This problem is man-made. The embankment should not be destroyed." Sheng said, wearing a tall hat and sweating profusely. He led the way to the embankment and pointed out the fragile top soil, which cannot be compared with the powerful force of wind and water.

He said: "This is a tofu project."

After the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, China referred to low-quality construction projects that crowded out the pockets of officials but endangered the lives of citizens.

He said that nearly 1,650 acres of farmland were flooded due to the rupture of the embankment, destroying all nearby farmers’ first crops of this year-at the urging of the government,

-And most of the crops in the second season and seedlings in the third season.

Another village was also flooded, some of which were homes to people who were stranded and neglected by the local government for a week.

58-year-old Cheng Xuanan said: “It seems that this village does not exist at all.” A resident of Chengjia Village in Yinbaohu County where there is only one village left. The sea has receded about 40 families, turning them into small islands cut off by underwater land.

Cheng has worked in marble finishing for decades, mainly employing migrant workers.

It may cause lung disease or even death. At the request of his wife, he hurried home a few days before the village was flooded. She raised their 1½-year-old granddaughter alone and feared being cut off by the flood.

Unlike the peasant neighbors, the Zheng family has very little food. He travels to and from the nearest solid ground three hours a day, rowing a white plastic boat, the size of a bathtub, to obtain drinking water and supplies.

"We are trying to consider ways to buy vegetables," Cheng said. They did not receive any relief or contact from any government official. He added that they did not leave because they had nowhere to go.

Residents in some other villages have been evacuated by the local government and have provided shelter in middle schools. In a dormitory room, five single grandmothers sat on bunk beds and exchanged stories about the speed of the water rising. In another family, a family member surnamed Huang cut a watermelon when the children were exhausted after falling asleep.

In 1998, the displaced recalled that the water refused to drain for 90 days. This time, the flooding is more serious, and another storm is expected soon. It may take at least four months for them to go home. But what if the shelter of this middle school overflows in the next storm? Where will they go?

When night fell, some villagers crossed a bridge and walked towards their houses, loaded boats for fishing, brought home supplies or defended thieves who had stolen several air conditioners. When people sprinkled water outside the window, a chorus sounded.

The faint sound of mobile phone music came from the bridge. A shirtless farmer squeezed a plastic chair with a wedge on the armrest and leaned back, feeling the breeze blowing. Others chatted, gathered at the end of the road where the embankment suddenly collapsed, and four houses fell into the river. Still only one person can see, a 45-degree miracle with a blue roof and balcony.

"That is the best house in China," Huang Guoxin, 51, joked, lighting a cigarette as night fell. He said that he watched other houses collapse as if they were made of sugar. He said it was a slanted half-submerged, but its shape was perfect. "It doesn't even lack a single tile."

Huang is a migrant worker doing renovation work in Zhejiang. He lives in three doors under the sloping house. He said there probably shouldn't be a house on top of the embankment. "However, if you pay the officials, they will approve any housing. If you don't pay, they will always say it is illegal," he said.

He said that Huang had been evacuated to the school, worried that the rest of the ground here might be buried in water. But he still came back, partly to check his home, and partly because he could not sleep on the metal bunk beds in the shelter.

"It's not that it's uncomfortable. You just feel the pressure inside yourself," he said: How easy is the work of life to be washed away, only you rebuild, and then watch it be washed away.

Latin experience record

Get the Latinx Files newsletter and get stories that capture the many people in our community.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

follow us

Alice Su is the Beijing bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times.

More from the Los Angeles Times

Donald Trump appointed two lawyers in his impeachment defense team. One day ago, it was reported that the former president had parted ways with earlier lawyers.

Tensions with the country’s powerful army escalated for a few days before they were arrested.

In the world of pseudonymous Internet message boards, there are various uprisings. Last week, they gave us the great GameStop stock uprising.

More coverage

When U.S. court officials confirmed that their electronic case files were damaged in an attack on the U.S. computer network, legal experts sounded the alarm.