The world's worst dam disaster

Yesterday I blogged about Britain’s worst dam disaster. The world’s worst happened in China in 1975.

As part of his ‘Great Leap Forward’ designed to enable China to become a major industrial power, Chairman Mao encouraged peasants to go off and build dams, which they did with great enthusiasm, but also with a Brexiter-like disdain for experts. So the structures were jerry-built, and within a couple of years, they were collapsing. A hydrologist who tried to sound a warning was purged for being a ‘right-wing opportunist’.

In August 1975, storms dumped heavy rain on Henan province. On 9 August, the Shimantan dam collapsed and half an hour later, the Banqiao dam gave way, unleashing a wall of water 20 feet high. In all 60 dams burst, flooding an area of 4,000 square miles.

China tried to hide the disaster from the world’s gaze, and it was 30 years before the truth began to emerge. The authorities admitted that at least 26,000 had been killed, but other estimates put the figure as high as 85,000 killed by the floods, with another 145,000 from the famine and disease that followed.

For the full story, see my book A Disastrous History of the World.

More deaths at work

Following the collapse of the factory building in Bangladesh, a disastrous fire at a poultry processing plant in China.   At least 112 people have been killed in the blaze at Dehui in Jilin province according to an official news agency.

Dozens of injured workers have been sent to hospital, while about 100 managed to escape, but the news agency added that the ‘complicated interior structure’ of the building and narrow exits had made rescue work difficult. It is also said that the front gate had been locked.

One worker said that as the lights went out, people panicked in the rush to find an exit. An investigation is underway, while according to some reports, the fire took hold after a series of explosions in an electrical system.   

This is China's deadliest fire since 2000, when 309 people died in a dance hall in Luoyang, Henan province, while back in 1845, 1,670 people were killed in the world’s deadliest ever theatre fire in Canton.

More floods in China

Floods are said to be the most common natural disaster to afflict mankind, and China has suffered many, including perhaps the deadliest natural disaster in history.  (See my blog of June 20.)

Now a week of heavy rain has brought the deaths of at least 57 people and driven a million from their homes.    The flooding in Sichuan is the worst since records began in 1847, and the provinces of Henan and Shaanxi have also been hit.

More than 120,000 houses have been destroyed, along with many crops.   Many of those who died were in a brick factory and the dormitory for its workers that were buried by a landslide in the city of Xi’an.

Last year’s floods were the worst in China for a decade, and cost 4,000 lives, while so far this year more than 350 people have been killed in 12 provinces.

Mining accidents - now the bad news

Amid the euphoria over the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners, a reminder of how dangerous mining can be – especially in China. An explosion at a coal mine at Yuzhou in Henan province has killed 20 and trapped another 17 underground.

Official reports say that 239 miners got to the surface safely, and that attempts are being made to reach the missing men. China’s mining industry is the most dangerous in the world, with more than 2,600 killed in accidents last year.

The government has tried to improve standards, closing down more than 1,500 illegal pits this year. It also brought in new regulations saying that mine managers have to go and work underground with their men. This tougher approach has helped to reduce the number of deaths from nearly 7,000 a year in 2002, but many miners are poorly trained migrant workers, and rules are often broken.

(See also my blog of Nov 23, 2009.)

*The Glasgow and Leicester edition of myvillage.com have kindly put up articles about my books.

http://glasgow.myangus.co.uk/article/glasgows-disastrous-history

http://myvillage.com/article/leicesters-disastrous-history

Bursting dams

Two dam bursts in southern Kazakhstan have killed 35 people. They happened after heavy rains, and two villages in the Almaty region were swept away by the resulting floods. President Nazarbayev has suggested that the dams may have been poorly maintained, and is threatening to prosecute those responsible.

The world’s worst ever dam disaster happened in China’s Henan province in 1975 when 60, built shoddily as part of Chairman Mao’s “Great Leap Forward”, gave way after heavy rains. More than 4,000 square miles were flooded, and the death toll is disputed to this day. The official figure is 26,000, but others say it was really as many as 230,000 if you include those who died from starvation and disease in the aftermath. (see my blog of March 27, 2009)

One of India’s worst floods happened when the Machchu-2 dam burst in 1979, flooding the town of Morvi in Gujarat and killing up to 15,000 people. Once again there had been heavy rains.

While America’s worst flood followed the collapse of what was then the world’s biggest earth dam, 14 miles from Johnstown in Pennsylvania. The dam held back the USA’s biggest man-made lake. It burst on May 31, 1889 after weeks of rain, and the waters careered through four villages and then devastated Johnstown itself, killing at least 2,200 people. For the full story, see A Disastrous History of the World.

China - secret disasters

In China an activist who has been investigating the Sichuan earthquake of 2008 has been jailed for five years for inciting subversion. Although the charges against Tan Zuoren did not formally relate to his investigation, human rights groups claim they were the real reason for the prosecution.

He was arrested while preparing a report into the collapse of school buildings during the quake. In many areas, schools seemed to have fared worse than neighbouring buildings, and parents alleged that corruption had led to poor building standards. Altogether 80,000 people died.

A Hong Kong television crew was prevented from attending Tan Zuoren’s trial, and had their hotel room searched for alleged possession of drugs.

China has a record of secrecy in the aftermath of disasters. After the great Tangshan quake of 1976 it took two years for the authorities to announce that 242,000 had been killed, and many still believe the true number was much higher, while details of the Henan floods of 1975 – caused by shoddily built dams – were suppressed for nearly 30 years. Human rights groups believe that more than 200,000 people died.

Dam bursts

At least 58 people, and probably many more, have been drowned after a dam built of earth burst south-west of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia. The waters of the Situ Gintung lake rose because of heavy rain, then overwhelmed the dam, which gave way at two in the morning when most people were asleep. The waters swept away cars and brought down telephone lines. The dam was said to be up to 100 years old.

The world’s worst ever dam burst happened in China’s Henan province in 1975. As part of his “Great Leap Forward”, Chairman Mao had ordered villagers all over the country to build home-made, and home-designed, dams with whatever implements they could lay their hands on. After days of exceptionally heavy rain, more than sixty of them burst, and floods spread over 4,000 square miles.

Whole towns were washed away, and more than a million people were trapped by the waters, but the authorities tried to keep the disaster secret, and it was only in 1995 that the pressure group Human Rights Watch began to reveal its full magnitude. It was another decade before the Chinese authorities started to lift the veil of secrecy, saying that 26,000 people had been killed. Others believe the toll was much higher, with Human Rights Watch putting it at 85,000 in addition to the 145,000 who died from starvation and disease in the aftermath.

AIDS in China + it's only money (6)

AIDS has now been officially recognised as China’s deadliest disease. It killed nearly 7,000 people in the first nine months of last year, overtaking tuberculosis and rabies. The figure represents a big increase, but there are suspicions that the real total may be much higher, as many local officials are thought to be reluctant to report cases. According to UN figures, 700,000 Chinese people were infected with the virus by the end of 2007.

AIDS victims used to have a difficult time in China. A human rights activist was put under house arrest after exposing the failure of the authorities in Henan province to carry out HIV tests on blood donations in the 1990’s, which resulted in an estimated 55,000 people being infected. Other activists were said to have been beaten up with the connivance of the authorities.

Across the world last year, the World Health Organisation said that there were 33 million people living with the AIDS virus, and that 2 million had died during 2007. About 1.6 million of those deaths were in sub-Saharan Africa - the region that is worst affected with two thirds of the world’s cases. Countries such as Botswana, Swaziland, South Africa and Zimbabwe all have infection rates of over 15 per cent.

It’s only money. Has Labour completely lost the plot? We are being told that it is a great victory for the taxpayer that RBS is now going to pay out only £340 million in bonuses instead of the £1 billion it originally planned. That is still a forced contribution of more than £10 from every taxpayer, some of whom will be earning as little as £6,000 a year. RBS is broke. It is only being kept afloat by a huge hand-out of our money. There is no justification for paying any bonuses of any sort. End of story. When will Labour and the bankers get it?