Tag: Disasters and Emergencies

China Offers Condolences to Nepal While Emphasizing Disaster Began There

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China’s leader, Xi Jinping, extended his condolences to Nepal’s president on Friday over the hundreds of deaths caused by the landslide on the countries’ border and pledged China’s support in Nepal’s aid efforts. “I am confident that the people of both countries will be able to join hands to overcome the disaster and rebuild their homes,” Mr. Xi said in a message to Nepal’s president, Ram Chandra Paudel, reported by Chinese state media. The message, his first addressed to Nepal’s government since the disaster on Wednesday, noted that the countries…

Disaster Experts Say Nepal Glacier Collapse Was Difficult to Predict

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It was a wall of water and mud traveling at such speed that it engulfed buildings in seconds. In the wake of the Nepal flood disaster, questions were being asked about whether the deadly torrent could have been predicted or detected quicker to give communities downstream more time to evacuate. Geologists say they believe the flash floods in Nepal and Tibet were set off by a dual high-altitude landslide and glacial avalanche that unleashed huge volumes of water. Disaster experts say such events are difficult to forecast. Most monitoring and…

China’s Information Control Could Hamper Flood Rescue Efforts in Tibet

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As journalists in Nepal gather eyewitness accounts and up-to-date information about the deadly flood that swept entire villages away on Wednesday, the scene across the border in China could not be more different. By Thursday, videos taken and posted online by locals, including a widely circulated clip of a mudslide engulfing a border crossing in Gyirong County, in China’s Tibet, were censored on Chinese social media platforms. More than 500 people were missing in Gyirong, with three confirmed deaths in the county of about 2,000 people. The authorities have provided…

Typhoon Bavi Hits China, Causing Evacuations, Floods and Flight Delays

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Typhoon Bavi caused landslides and flooding over the weekend as it made landfall in eastern China, where the authorities evacuated almost two million people in anticipation of the strongest storm to hit the country this year. The typhoon touched down in the city of Taizhou in Zhejiang Province at around 11:20 p.m. on Saturday, lashing the area with winds of almost 90 miles per hour. It made a second landfall in the city of Wenzhou, also in Zhejiang, around midnight. Across the province, 1.7 million people were evacuated, many of…

Heavy Rain and Floods in China Kill at Least 22

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Heavy rain and flash floods in southwestern and central China this week killed at least 22 people, forced tens of thousands to evacuate their homes and flooded cities and farmland, Chinese state media reported. The storm — the most intense to hit China this year — began dumping rain in these areas on Friday, and up to 12 inches fell across seven provinces over about five days, state media reported. In Fangchenggang, a coastal city near Vietnam, total rainfall reached about 32 inches, according to Xinhua, China’s state news agency.…

When Tragedy Strikes in China, the Government Cracks Down on Grief

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Many innocent lives were lost to tragic events in China in the past month. So far we haven’t learned a single name of any of them from China’s government or its official media. Nor have we seen news interviews of family members talking about their loved ones. Those victims would include a coach and 10 members of a middle-school girls volleyball team who were killed in late July when the roof caved in on a gymnasium near the Siberian border. Despite an outpouring of public grief and anger around the…

Anger in China Over Flooding of Towns, in Part, to Save Beijing

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For days, the rain came down in sheets, pounding Beijing and areas around it in what the government said was the heaviest deluge China’s capital had seen since record keeping began 140 years ago. When the extreme downpour finally stopped on Tuesday, most of Beijing had been spared the worst — but partly because officials made sure the floodwaters went elsewhere. Officials in Hebei Province, which borders Beijing, had opened flood gates and spillways in seven low-lying flood control zones to prevent rivers and reservoirs from overflowing in Beijing and…

Sri Lanka, Its Economy Reeling, Is Approved for $3 Billion Rescue Loan

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The executive board of the International Monetary Fund approved a loan worth $3 billion to help Sri Lanka through the financial crisis that has had the nation in a rolling economic and political crisis for more than a year. The I.M.F. had agreed in principle to extend the funds last September — subject to Sri Lanka’s meeting a series of conditions that included tightening its finances and renegotiating the terms of repaying debt it owes to the biggest economies in Asia. Even before the announcement was made, late on Monday…