Last year, devastating floods hit Hebei Province and it has been several months since then. The villagers of Renzhuangzi Village, designated as a flood drain area, did not receive any relief supplies. Recently, some villagers revealed that the supplies they were supposed to receive had been confiscated by the local government and still haven’t been distributed to the residents. They angrily criticized the authorities, saying they would rather see the supplies destroyed than given to the people.
One villager from Renzhuangzi Village in Wangzhuangzi Town, Bazhou City, Hebei Province, posted a whistleblower letter online. The letter mentioned that in August last year, Renzhuangzi Village was hit by floodwaters due to being designated as a flood drain area, thus qualifying for compensation.
However, the village committee of Renzhuangzi recently announced detailed regulations on flood compensation, revealing discrepancies between the compensation claimed by local government officials and the actual situation. The villagers questioned and reported the village cadres for allegedly embezzling the national flood compensation funds.
Furthermore, the villager also released two videos showing a large amount of disaster relief supplies piled up indoors and outdoors in the village committee office.
One villager expressed dissatisfaction in front of the camera, saying, “So many disaster relief supplies are left out in the open, exposed to the wind and rain. They would rather see them destroyed than distributed to the people. Is this fair?”
On Twitter, netizens commented, “Rather let them rot than give them to the disaster victims. The village chief’s relatives can’t even use them all, so they are left to weather the elements. After all, the authorities didn’t provide a proper warehouse for the supplies.”
Other netizens stated, “The situation is similar in several neighborhood committees in Shanghai. The staff find it ‘troublesome’ and leave the supplies to rot in the warehouse. From Wenchuan to Bazhou, the Communist Party always behaves this way.”
The above events can be traced back to the end of July and beginning of August last year when many provinces and cities in mainland China experienced widespread heavy rainfall exceeding historical records. The continuous heavy rain in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region caused severe flooding in Bazhou, Zhuozhou, and other areas, affecting millions of people.
According to the news broadcast in Hebei at that time, from August 1 to 2, the Secretary of the Hebei Provincial Party Committee, Ni Yuefeng, inspected flood prevention and disaster relief work in Baoding City and Xiong’an New Area. Besides emphasizing “ensuring overall social stability,” he also instructed to orderly utilize flood storage areas to reduce flood pressure on Beijing and to staunchly defend the capital’s “moat.”
Ni Yuefeng visited Xiong’an New Area to inspect flood prevention and flood control measures. He mentioned that Xiong’an New Area did not experience internal flooding or other dangers during this round of heavy rainfall, and he aimed to make the “quality of Xiong’an” a hallmark through this period of intense rainfall. Xiong’an New Area is a national-level new area planned by the paramount leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, as a “millennial plan.”
After the heavy rain, Hebei Province activated 7 flood storage areas for diversion, one of which was the Dongdian Flood Storage Area in Bazhou, which was put into operation at 2 a.m. on August 1. This flood storage area covered the mentioned Wangzhuangzi Town and 47 villages.
Due to dissatisfaction with the Communist Party’s official media claims that the flooding was due to heavy rainfall, the disaster-stricken residents of Bazhou later protested at the Bazhou Municipal Government, holding banners, and clashed fiercely with the police. Subsequently, the Bazhou authorities issued an open letter admitting that the flooding caused disaster and promised compensation.
However, based on the whistleblower letter and the videos, it appears that the compensation funds and disaster relief supplies have not been fully delivered to the disaster victims in Bazhou.
According to local reports, following the floods, residents in cities like Zhuozhou faced a survival crisis.