China Watch
February 14, 1999

The ‘northern drought, southern flood’ pattern has become a recurring climatic trend in China, and has already affected tens of millions of people nationwide this year.

[Excerpt] With the arrival of the 2006 flood season, high waters have begun threatening low-lying areas in southern China. Meanwhile, the country’s north continues to suffer from a severe drought. This "northern drought, southern flood" pattern has become a recurring climatic trend in China, and has already affected tens of millions of people nationwide this year. Since mid-April, three fierce rainstorms have battered northeastern and southern China, resulting in regional flooding. In Guangdong and Fujian provinces to the north, maximum daily precipitation totaled as much as 400Ð600 millimeters. As of May 31, floods had affected an estimated 19 million people nationwide, destroying more than 70,000 homes and 1.06 million hectares of crops. Fifty-nine people have died and 11 remain missing. Direct economic losses from the events are reported at nearly 13.1 billion RMB (US$1.6 billion) this year, the highest such losses on record. … The key to this year’s flood control efforts is ensuring reservoir safety, according to Jingping E [secretary-general of the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief]. Sixty-eight reservoirs collapsed in China in 2005 alone; in total, 3,486 such collapses occurred between 1954 and 2005.