With five major typhoons in mainland China this year so far, the loss of 662 lives in floods, 332 missing victims and the additional loss of 400,000 houses to the disaster, China’s Ministry of Water Resources had a testy season and the worst in 18 years.

To fix these problems, the country’s economy bled a princely RMB 311b.

But with all these and other disasters, the ministry still had a great result to be proud about.

At an interactive with African and Asian journalists in Beijing last weekend, officials of the ministry disclosed the facts and praised the central government of China for proactive steps taken in the past to enhance flood and natural disaster mitigation infrastructure.

Water Resources ministry officials with African journalists

At the stocktaking, the office affirmed that although there were losses from floods in human lives, missing persons, lost homes and buildings, public utility, equipment and others, there has been considerable drop in pains caused by such calamities by an average of about 35% nationwide, a positive pointer that the preparations made by the government in anticipation of such occurrences yielded positive dividends.

In specifics, the Inspector, Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, Mr. Zhang Jiatuan explained that “President Xi Jinping pays more attention to better management of disasters and also has encouraged provision of more efficient infrastructure, and within a short time in the year, Premier Li Keqiang called two conferences in disaster mitigation with the Vice Premier as the chairman of the flood control body that held several conferences and trainings and also personally visited affected areas to assist in providing the victims aid. The aids also led to the construction of better and more infrastructure on the waterways to fight back flood disasters.”

The ministry said that floods and related disasters make up more than 60% of natural disasters China experiences every year and therefore has attracted the most attention from government and the agencies. Because of the importance the government attaches to such disasters, in this year alone, to contain the disaster-gone-wild regime, the government and other agencies deployed the services of 17m citizens in one way or the other inclusive of volunteers. In everyday the team was in action to push back the raging and unfriendly waters, it worked with an average of 807 personnel, and sometimes had to contend with multiple incidents in a day at the peak of the crises.

But to underscore the better and more efficient disasters management the system has adopted over time, this year, curtailing floods and other related natural aggressions, the cost of containing them took a toll of a paltry 0.16% on the GDP, as against 6.7% in 1991 and 1.7% in 1998.

To implement the efficacious disaster management system of China that gave rise to the improved results, the ministry handled 14 projects, sent 140 intervention notifications to its offices and related bodies, mobilized 290 teams to regions for action, sent 41,000 weather alerts in addition to the 10m short service messages (SMS) that reached 9.1m people living in areas identified for the effect of floods and evacuated about 360,000 persons from disaster areas before the floods and other incidents struck.

Zhang said these measures assisted in no little way to mitigate losses that would have been incurred in the natural upheavals.

For instance, the efforts of the ministry to ensure it remained on top of the job for best results led to the proliferation of 885 administrative heads in five provinces most affected by floods located within the midstream of the Yangtze River who assisted in management of crises and response dissemination.

According to the ministry, the 2016 flood season came earlier than expected and in the immediate past years, especially since 1998, characterized by 37 strong storms, heavy and high concentration of precipitation at an average of 556mm of rainfall, with 91 counties receiving stronger storms and higher precipitations.

These caused higher floods in several river basin locations all over China and high ebbs in water levels that remained the highest since 1954, and Yangtze River’s highest flood in 18 years, with a stretch of 11,000km of rivers exceeding flood alarm levels.

Also, the north of the country had the severest flood since 1996 especially on the Yangtze tributaries causing a general rise in water levels of 457 rivers nationwide, 113 floods in midstream of the river, and 51 of the rivers having the worst flooding in their history.

The wild weather brought five major typhoons to the coastal provinces with 62 major damages to 91,000 embankments, 1500 reservoirs.

The office promised that although the development in the year challenged its resources and preparedness, containing it deepened and sharpened the adroitness of the ministry in handling precarious situations which sent them the lesson of doing more and developing better and more effective skills for future emergencies.

Emewu, senior editor of The Sun Newspaper, Nigeria is Fellow of the China Public Diplomacy and former intern in the People’s Daily ([email protected])