Heavy rains in southern China trigger serious disasters; victims accuse officials of blocking information

China has been experiencing constant natural disasters recently. The southern region has been affected by the remnant circulation and stagnant airflow of Typhoon Sadr. Record-breaking torrential rains have recently fallen. Severe landslides and landslides have been reported in the inland mountainous areas of Hunan and Jiangxi. Tens of thousands of people have been affected. However, the number of casualties reported by officials is only in single digits. They have even actively blocked the flow of news, making the victims very dissatisfied.

Heavy rains that have fallen in southern China in recent days have caused severe disasters in many places in Hunan and Jiangxi. Online images can show that many houses have collapsed, roads have been interrupted, and some remote villages have even fallen into the predicament of power outages, Internet outages, and lack of supplies. The number of casualties and missing people continues to rise.

Guidong County in Chenzhou City in Hunan was particularly severely affected. Since the end of August, record-breaking heavy rains fell in the county for several days, triggering multiple landslides. It is estimated that more than 10,000 people were affected by the disaster, but official statistics so far only know of 2 deaths and 1 injury. In addition, cracks were also discovered in Hengpu Village, Xinning County, Shaoyang City, making local residents worried about the occurrence of secondary disasters.

The disaster situation in Suichuan County, Ji'an City, Jiangxi Province is equally severe. Earthslides occurred in Gaoping Town and Zuo'an Town on the 5th of this month, completely destroying many houses. Some villages were cut off from external roads and communications. Hundreds of elders and residents who stayed in the village could only use vehicle batteries to charge their mobile phones and share remaining food for mutual aid and self-rescue. So far, only official reports indicate that 4 people were killed and 10 people are missing. The figures are obviously distorted.

In addition, serious floods also broke out in Quanzhou, Zhangzhou and Putian in Fujian Province. After Lingxia Village, Changtai Town, Putian City suffered heavy rainfall on the 4th of this month, the village was besieged by floods for three days, and all access roads were interrupted. Since most of the residents in the village are elderly, when outside rescue and supplies cannot arrive in time, the villagers can only rely on a small number of non-flooded residents to help each other tide over the difficulties.

Faced with the severe disaster and reconstruction pressure, many victims accused the local government of not providing specific post-disaster compensation and resettlement measures, but instead focusing on blocking news. Some victims said that after they uploaded aerial shots of the disaster area or videos of farmland damage on platforms such as Douyin, the number of views increased rapidly, but they immediately received a phone call from local officials to warn them and request that the videos be deleted.