FLOOD DAMAGE IN CHINA

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27442, 31 August 1954, Page 8

FLOOD DAMAGE IN CHINA

EFFECT ON FOOD SUPPLY CONFLICTING REPORTS PUBLISHED (From a Router Correspondent) HONG KONG. Reports from official Chinese sources and foreign travellers suggest that flood waters from the swollen Yangtse and Huai rivers may have caused widespread damage to rice and wheat crops. The Communist Chinese press and Peking Radio have given big publicity to the “people’s fight to hold the raging rivers.” None of these reports has included any details of damage or the area flooded. However, officials in Hong Kong believe the flooding has been extensive. They think a considerable part of tne rich rice belt which extends through the Hupeh, Hunan and Kiangsi provinces in under water and that the areas along the Huai river have also, suffered. The New China Newsagency said the entire Yangtse river basin had experienced “the heaviest rainfall in 100 years.” In the Wuhan (Hankow) area the level of the river was “higher than ever before recorded.” The “People’s Daily”—the official Peking newspaper—called for “redoubled efforts to combat the rising flood waters of the Yangtse and Huai nvers.” It said there had been “round-the-clock operations at the dikes tc reinforce them against the onslaught of rasing tides.” Most of the official reports have emphasised the part played by Gov-ernment-reconstructed dikes in stemming the flood waters. The New China Newsagency said the city of Hankow was "standing firm against a towering river which has risen beyond the level recorded in 1931 when the city was submerged.” Radio Peking said the newly built reservoirs and water detention works had proved their efficiency in protecting farmland from flood waters. The radio said the Huai river had been "entirely harnessed” in its upper reaches and “calamitous losses” had been averted. “Contradictory Reports?* Other reports have given a contradictory picture. The New China Newsagency said the Central Food Ministry had rushed large quantities of rice from south-west and north-east China to five provinces along the Yangtse and Huai rivers where rising waters had flooded “some low-lyipg areas.” The agency also reported that “flood victims” in Hunan, Hupeh and Kiangsi provinces were receiving “relief supplies” from agricultural produce co-operatives and local government organisations and the centralsouth branch of the People’s Bank had allocated about £1,500,000 for "flood relief.” Indications that there has been at least some damage to crops have been contained in the most recent official reports on the floods. One New China Newsagency report said farmers in the Hunan. Hupeh, Kiangsi, Anhwei end Chekiang provinces had been supplied with seed for late autumn crops “to make good flood losses.” Serious flood damage to crops wouia be a blow to Communist hopes for .a bumper wheat and rice harvest this year. If flooding is widespread in the principle rice and wheat-growing areas the Chinese Government will be hard pressed to feed its people in the next 12 months.