Flood-hit Hebei city getting reprieve

Days of rescue work in Zhuozhou, North China's Hebei province, helped ensure the safety of flood-trapped residents as most of those affected have been relocated to safety and the city has enacted enhanced emergency supply responses to address interrupted water and power supplies.

Emergency rescue teams from many locations began leaving as most of the rescue work has been completed, the local government said on Friday.

Located about 80 kilometers southwest of Beijing, the county-level city began facing flooding from torrential rains earlier this week, with villages, residential communities and urban thoroughfares submerged and infrastructure heavily damaged.

To address power outages, State Grid Corp had dispatched more than 90 power-generating vehicles and over 200 generators by Friday. To restore communications, three aerial base stations were sent from China Mobile, one of the country's major telecom operators, on Wednesday.

As of Thursday morning, one of the stations had been put into operation to provide emergency communication support, according to the province's emergency management department.

Each station can cover an area of over 30 square kilometers and support 200 China Mobile users making phone calls at the same time, xinhuanet.com reported.

Preparations for base stations from another two major telecom operators — China Telecom and China Unicom — were also underway on Friday.

To restore water supplies, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has set up multiple sites to help provide adequate quantities of bottled water, which can basically meet the drinking water needs of locals.

Also, 16 special vehicles providing emergency water supplies and 52 experts have been dispatched from the country's water emergency rescue centers in Zhengzhou, Henan province, and Fushun, Liaoning province, according to the ministry.

As of Friday morning, the Zhengzhou teams had provided about 180 metric tons of potable water, a report by The Paper said.

The ministry has also set up mobile latrines with 300 toilet cubicles from Beijing as there was no water available for flushing in some upper floors of residential community buildings.

"I'm so relieved we now have access to electricity," Xiao Jifeng, a resident in an affected residential community, said on Friday, adding that two days had passed without power.

The community is now equipped with eight of the emergency power-generating vehicles that started operations on Friday morning, said Hou Naiqian, who is in charge of 27 such vehicles from Shandong province.

Hou said they will not leave until normal power supply resumes in Zhuozhou.

"But the vehicles can only enter communities in need when the floodwaters drop," he added.

To facilitate the floodwaters receding, the ministry has coordinated 14 water-pumping vehicles and 63 employees from Beijing Drainage Group Co.

They will first pump floodwaters from important public infrastructure facilities such as hospitals, substations and large residential communities that were heavily flooded, China Media Group reported.

Before that, the provincial department of housing and urban-rural development had sent 18 pumping vehicles which began work on Tuesday.

Floodwater levels in hard-hit locations, such as the towns of Diaowo and Matou, began receding on Thursday, two days after the rains stopped, according to locals and rescue teams.

Although the rains have stopped, high water levels in nearby rivers and flooded areas will require a process to normalize, Li Na, deputy head of the Department of Water Resources of Hebei, told CCTV.

"It will take a week to a month for the waters to thoroughly recede," she said. During the process, there still will be about 300 to 400 million cubic meters of water running through the city.

There are multiple rivers that converge in or run through Zhuozhou, including the Xiaoqing, Beijuma and Liuli. Water levels in the rivers have greatly increased due to downpours and floodwaters from upstream stretches.