On February15,2012, Wang Jun, the chairman of China Democracy Party and the president of China Democracy Journal, in front of the US Capitol
Wang Jun: China! Why Rainfall Flood Disaster?
--- China Democracy Party talks about China policy on rain flood damage.
1.Observation on disaster or damage caused by rainfall flooding in China
In 2012 most part of China experienced the most serious drought in
decades. Fishermen, farmers and wild animals suffered the hardship of
drought for several months. In order to relieve the drought damage,
the Three Gorges Dam has been disemboguing water to the Yangzi River.
However, since the early June, a series of torrential rainfall covered
south China, inundating vast drought land, causing the most serious
flood since 1955.
On July 23rd, the latest disaster report released by China ministry of
civil affairs says, since 20th of the month there has been heavy
torrential rainfall from Sichuan Basin to North China area, amongst
very strong thunder storm appeared at Beijing, Tienjin, north part of
Hebei province and northwest part of Shanxi province etc, causing
hail, flooding, landslide and mud-rock flow disasters, which led to
heavy casualties and property damage.
By 12:00 noon of 23rd, Beijing, Tienjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner
Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjian, Shandong, Henan, Chongqing,
Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Shannxi, Guansu, Xinjiang etc. totally 17
provinces, autonomous zone or municipals directly under the Central
Government, have been calculated 6,230,000 people hit by the natural
adversity, 95 people died and 45 missing.
During this disaster caused by rainfall flooding in China, there were
567,000 people emergently relocated or life aid assisted, 29,000
houses collapsed, 55,000 houses damaged to some certain degree. Among
the death toll, Beijing had the most, first it was said 37 deaths, and
then said 77 deaths, but local rumors gave a number of over thousand
deaths.
According to a preliminary estimate, by 12:00 noon of the 23rd this
month, in China the natural disaster of this year, including hail,
flood, landslide, mud-rock flow etc. have caused 31 provinces,
autonomous zones and municipals directly under the Central Government,
and Xinjiang Production Corp. 110 million people were hit, 680 people
died, 137 people missing, 8,062,000 people emergently relocated or
life aid assisted, 372,000 houses collapsed and 1,485,000 houses
damaged to some certain degree.
Though rainfall flood disasters occurred in many countries, China
suffered it so seriously that special attention must be paid to
rainfall flooding.
2. Analysis of the rainfall flood disaster
In recent years rainfall flooding has been persecuting many large
cities in China. ‘Rainfall flooding’ scenery, has been seen in many
big cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou etc. It has brought
cities serious social and economic damage, endangering people’s life
safety.
Drought and flooding disasters bring huge loss to the state and the
people every year. The reason can be roughly classified as: 1.
politically corrupt, no supervision or restriction, so much amount of
money for rainfall flood disaster went to personal pocket; 2.
jerry-built rainfall water facilities, the contracted party could get
rainfall water facilities inspection passed so long as they bribed the
quality control officials; 3. short of rainfall flood knowledge,
laymen lead experts.
It is obvious how China communist officials politically corrupt,
jerry-build rainfall water facilities and short of rainfall flooding
knowledge through such natural adversities.
It must bear in mind that sewage conduit construction is not that
easily done as tap water ones, a straight pipeline could run from the
east to the west. Because sewage contains so much impurity that it
requires the ends of each sewage conduit section be made in toothing
connection. Only in slope angle sewage could be discharged away, like
a car moving upward slope and then downward to acquire its dynamic
force.
In different area, according to the terrain, sewage conduit will be
laid out differently. At a mountain basin area, a sewage bank is built
into U shape, so that it could take the advantage of the mountain
basin terrain, building a round dam at north, west and south sides,
reducing the dam construction to the great maximum.
Every layer soil for the dam must be pressed by 18-ton heavy roller,
like a multi-layer cake, so that water leakage will be prevented. The
dam side will also be covered with water-proof layer, and a supporting
wall be built at the back side of the dam, so as to balance the heavy
wave force on the dam.
We can see that the sewage pipe constructed on the U.S. bridges, where
the lower end of the pipe is open, so that rainfall water could flow
from up to down, then to sewers nearby. Water is not blocked by the
pipe inner air pressure. However, water pipes in many bridges in China
had their lower ends built closed. It looks better, but in heavy rain
weather, much rain water could not timely flow away and resulted in
water basins on road. When too much water gathered in such basins,
passing drivers may get drowned.
In present China, how much such basic knowledge of rainfall drainage
is known to the officials and construction parties?
3.Who is responsible for the rainfall flooding disaster
China sewage administrative department is responsible for urban sewage
and industrial wasted water collection, discharge, purification. They
do sewage constructions through international tender with big
projects, and they also take care of underground sewage conduit
dredge. However, many workers in urban sewage office do not go such
works personally, but they contracted it to laymen workers from
outside, as the work is really hard and dirty. The contracted workers
have no knowledge of sewage drainage, and they just remove the garbage
silted up in conduit with spade. They do not understand what lead to
the silting up in the drainage conduit.
As for the rainfall drainage facilities, in Beijing most part of the
drainage system was built in Ming Dynasty or Qing Dynasty with open
trench or subdrain, plus part of the system added after China
communist came into power. The whole drainage system was still in
operation, and many places in Beijing rainfall drainage depend on
natural conditions, discharging rain water into the city moat.
However, in recent decades Beijing subway construction and many high
buildings underground bases have damaged the urban drainage system to
serious degree, and disturbed the early ancient sewage conduit system
with wrong direction and wrong slope difference. This led to the
sewage flow gravity irrational and caused rainfall flood disaster.
The type of sewage pipes in use is a very old, thin inner layer with
bad material. When sour rainfall drained, the pipe is easily corroded
and caused leakage. Many families in urban houses experienced back
flow of the sewage, especially during the summer rainy season, with
terrible bad smell.
Besides the sewage pipe, the sewage cesspool in urban building is
another problem. The sewage cesspool needs to have good water-proof
layer and strong wall. However, in order to save money and speed up
construction, urban construction officials play corruption on every
step, so contracted companies earn less money and so they do
jerry-built projects instead. They use poor quality material in
copycat packaging in construction, with bribery to get approved from
supervisor engineers. The saved money go into their personal pockets,
but the sewage could not flow out later.
Along with the speedup of urban construction, many local leaders care
only about GDP. They cut off vast forest and built artificial lakes
with houses around. Water in such lakes came from no where, and in
rainy weather, it reservoirs nothing but worsens the rainfall
flooding. Trees have the capacity to reduce rainfall flooding, to keep
the soil from being flushed away. But along many main traffic roads in
Beijing, only some omamental plants were planted, which have no
capacity to keep soil together in rainy weather. This reflects the
political corruption in urban construction. The key problem is the
lack of media freedom and political democratic supervision, and the
lack of punishment by law as well.
4. China Democracy Party’s policy on preventing rainfall flooding disaster
China Democracy Party (CDP)’s policy on preventing rainfall flooding
disaster is to eradicate the political corruption in China, eliminate
the jerry-built constructions with bad material, and finally solve the
basic knowledge of rainfall flood issue, making scientific policy to
prevent rainfall flooding disaster. All this requires precondition of
media freedom, political democracy and independent legal system to
secure.
Regarding media freedom and political democracy to eradicate the
political corruption in China and to eliminate jerry-build
construction with bad material, CDP has many discussions previously,
so we lay emphasis today on how to solve the problem of the lack
knowledge of rainfall flooding.
To solve the problem of “lack of drainage knowledge” as well as the
problem of rainfall flood in cities, a rain water park in the city
center will be of great help. It is an efficient way, with landscape
as well as environmental protection, to deal the problems that urban
construction engineers fail to solve.
For example, to build a big park as a green center for the city will
help, like the central park in New York City. It was a wet land
previously, but the surrounding road and crowded buildings led to the
shortage of water, the fade or even disappearing of the wet land. To
turn the wet land into a rain water park, both solve the rain water
drainage, preventing the city from rain flooding, and restore the wet
land for the city, keeping an ecological green environment for the
city as well. The actual effect proves that this design is a great
success.
The design goes like this: keeping the central part of the wet land as
it was, and dig a trench around the wet land, to make some hills and
low basins, with plants of various kinds, making a blue-green
necklace, an interface of the nature and the city life. Along the
trench there are many rain water drainage pipes that drain rain water
into the wet land. Building some bridges and pavilions connected with
zigzag paths, big balcony over lake water, etc. will create a lot
colorful spaces.
Such a rain water park will not only reduce the rainfall flood
disaster, but also provide the urban citizens a beautiful place to
wander around, keeping a wet land for the city as it is.
Why China has rainfall flooding disaster?
The eventual reason is the lack of multi-party politics in China, so
scientific ways of solving the problem is not accepted. The corruption
and the exchanging power for money exist in China everywhere. The real
urban drainage experts have no power, while corrupt officials with
power in hand make things wrongly, including China urban
administrative department for sewage conduit drainage. CDP believes
that a modern multi-party politics will be realized in China some day.
If CDP comes into power, it will solve the rainfall flooding problem
with scientific knowledge of rain water drainage, so as to let the
Chinese people live safely on this land.
Wang Jun
Chairman of China Democracy Party, and
Proprieter of China Democracy Journal
Aug 25, 2012, New York |
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