Emergency crews are going all out in repair and relief operations after the dike breach in Dongting Lake, China's second-largest freshwater lake, in central China's Hunan Province.
Caused by excessive rain, a dike of the Dongting Lake burst at 17:48 Friday following failed emergency repair efforts in Tuanzhou Township, Huarong County under Yueyang City, causing flooding in the low-lying areas in the vicinity.
Initially, the breach was 10 meters wide on Friday, but it expanded to 226 meters by 11:00 on Saturday, with a water level difference of 0.1 meters.
Taking advantage of favorable conditions on Sunday, including good weather, less water from the upper reaches, and slower water flow, emergency forces advanced from both sides of the breach to speed up the gap-sealing progress.
On Saturday evening, a working group from the Ministry of Water Resources rushed to the disaster site, evaluated overall conditions overnight, and consulted with local governments and relevant departments to deploy emergency repair operations.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Emergency Management deployed laser radar drones for on-site mapping, while the working group from the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters continued to coordinate various on-site forces and formulate technical plans.
"The combination of land and water operations can increase the working area, greatly improving the sealing efficiency and speeding up the closure progress. At present, the overall progress is basically in line with expectations," said Deng Minghua, deputy director of the Dongting Lake water conservancy affairs center under the Hunan Provincial Department of Water Resources.
Meanwhile, each resettlement site across the county are equipped with sufficient daily necessities, cooling facilities, and professional medical teams for the relocated people.
"We have carried out drinking water testing, environmental disinfection, and food safety testing. At the same time, our provincial medical team is also conducting inspections to ensure pregnant and postpartum patients can be transferred to the hospital for diagnosis and treatment in a timely manner," said Li Xiaojun, secretary of the Party Committee of the Hunan Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters and the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration also allocated additional central government emergency rescue supplies to support Hunan Province in its flood prevention and rescue operations.
All-out repair, relief efforts underway after Dongting Lake dike breach
A freelance writer from Australia has decided to become a permanent resident in China after living and working in Guangdong for 20 years, during which he has cycled through the country to see a real China and has witnessed the significant changes in the country.
Jerry Grey, 66, made his home in Zhongshan City of south China's Guangdong Province in 2004. The night he arrived in the city, he realized he had been misinformed about China.
"This used to be a supermarket. And my first day here, it was very late at night, 11, 12 o'clock at night. I got out of the car and walked through the supermarket and saw all the things that I carried with me from Australia. I had new shampoos and body washes and razor blades, all the things that I was told online you can't get these things in China, so you better buy them before you go. So I bought them all in Australia and carried them all to China. And I was misinformed. I didn't need to buy any of these things at all, because they're all cheaper here as well. I had to pay excess baggage in the airline because I was carrying so much weight. So that was a very strange experience. I also bought two bottles of Australian wine. And I can buy that in the supermarket, too," Grey said.
While serving as an English teacher at a foreign language school in Zhongshan, Grey spent a lot of his spare time traveling across China and fell in love with the welcoming people, beautiful landscapes, local cuisines, and a Chinese woman, who became his wife in 2009.
In 2014, Grey made a "crazy" decision to travel to Xinjiang by bicycle with a photographer friend, who is also a foreign expatriate.
"We left Zhongshan, traveled north into Hunan, and then Hubei, and then turned slightly northwest through Shaanxi, and then into Gansu, Ningxia, and across to Xinjiang. So that was quite an extended ride. That was 5,000 kilometers," Grey said.
It took them 57 days to finish that trip and finally see the magnificent views around Tianshan Mountains in Xinjiang.
"And the idea is that we want to see China. One of the most incredible things about riding a bike is the authenticity of the country, the real part of China," Grey said.
Grey has published a picture album titled "57 Days across China" to keep his memories alive and show people what he had seen during the journey. The funds raised from sales of the books have been used to help the people with disabilities in Zhongshan.
Over the past decade, Grey has ridden 35,000 kilometers in China, and his wife Liang Yuhua joined him in 2019.
In doing so, they have raised significant sums of money for people with disabilities and witnessed impressive changes in villages, where wide roads, modern home-stay hotels and restaurants have become common features in the past few years.
"In 2019, I noticed the significant changes when riding with Jerry. Especially, some rural areas are so clean that we didn't see any garbage. And the waste classification bins were placed neatly. So I told Jerry, 'see how great the changes that have happened in China over the years'," Liang said.
After retirement, Grey became a freelance writer. He has been posting videos on social media about what he has seen in China, including the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Link and the Village Basketball Association, an amateur rural basketball event that has become a nationwide sports phenomenon.
In recent years, Grey is impressed by the increasingly easier life in China, even for foreign travelers.
"So foreigners can actually open bank accounts in China. They can use WeChat and Alipay very, very simply as long as they're prepared before they arrive. Chinese payments are as convenient as it is possible to be," Grey said.
A few days ago, Grey went to the immigration office of Zhongshan and applied for a foreign permanent resident ID card.
"I think the time is right. I've lived here for 20 years, but for most of that time, I lived here on working permits and residence visas. Then when I retired from work, I'm on a spousal visa. And I think the time is right, because it gives me the card that I can travel around China without carrying my passport. And it becomes much more convenient. It's going quite smoothly. At the moment, we're waiting for the police checks to come back," he said.
Australian expat sees real China on bicycle
