Natural disasters in China cause tens of billions of dollars in economic loss and hundreds of deaths every year. While people accept most of the disasters as unpreventable, the losses worsen already stark social inequality.
This summer, Mengwa, a region in the eastern Chinese province of Anhui, became one of the worst-hit areas during China's record flooding, not because of the abundant rainfall but because it is one of the country’s biggest flood diversion zones. For decades, whenever floods threaten the industrial zones and key transportation hubs downstream, this region becomes submerged when officials release the Wangjia dam upstream. For the authorities, it makes sense to flood a vast rural area that contributes less to the country’s gross domestic product.
Last month, the dam released 375 million cubic meters of water to Mengwa to ease flooding elsewhere. Dozens of villages were underwater and thousands of hectares of crops were impacted. A popular saying in China encourages people to "make a small sacrifice to achieve a bigger goal,” and local officials in Anhui, proud of their region’s sacrifice, like to say that the people there are the embodiment of this spirit.