UPDATED
Mudslides and dramatic rescues as China hit by floods

Issued on: 19/08/2020

Text by:FRANCE 24

Video by:Sam BALL  AT THE END OF THE ARTICLE 

From a 1,300 statue under threat of being submerged to houses swept away by mudslides and dramatic rescues of stranded civilians, some of the worst flooding seen in decades has wreaked havoc across the Chinese province of Sichuan following heavy rains.

The toes of the 71-metre Buddha statue in Leshan were submerged in water on Tuesday, August 18, the first time that has happened in 70 years, state media reported.

The threat to the statue, built in 713 AD, is just one example of how the vast floods are threatening lives, infrastructure and heritage.

Heavy rains since the weekend have triggered flooding across China’s Sichuan Province, forcing authorities to activate the highest level of a four-tier flood alert system for the first time on record, while parts of the provincial capital Chengdu have been hit by the worst flooding since 1981, authorities said.

The floods have triggered mudslides that have destroyed homes and property and the rising waters have devastated swathes of farmland.

More than 100,000 people had been evacuated as of Tuesday while emergency services have rescued hundreds of people trapped by the flooding, say authorities.

Rescue efforts have not just been limited to the region's human population. Amateur footage captured the moment firefighters rushed to save a number of dogs from a pet hospital in Chengdu on Friday.

More than 63.4 million have been affected by flooding in regions across China this year, according to authorities, with the country being battered by unusually heavy rains since early June.

A total of 219 people have died or remain missing as of August

Severe flooding affects giant Buddha statue in China  

Beijing, Aug 18 (Prensa Latina) The famous Buddha of Leshan, a giant statue located in the southwestern province of Sichuan, for the first time in 70 years is suffering the floods that are affecting the area today and keeping it on extreme alert.

Although rescue teams erected dikes with sandbags, the waters of nearby rivers reached the feet of the colossus this morning and covered them completely.

The event is a cause for concern and has led to the activation of the highest contingency phase for natural disasters, since an old local belief indicates that when this happens, the entire city will be flooded.

The statue is the largest ancient piece of its kind in the world and also the largest stone representation of the Buddha.

Its construction took 90 years to complete and was the brainchild of a monk named Haitong, who was concerned about the regular whirlwinds and floods that caused the confluence of the Ming, Qingyi and Dadu Rivers, which made the city a major river trade center at the time.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization included it in its list of heritage treasures in 1996. 

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China evacuates 100,000 as floods threaten heritage site

Floodwater reaches the Leshan Giant Buddha's feet following heavy rainfall, in Leshan, Sichuan province, China August 18, 2020. China Daily via REUTERS

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Floods on the upper reaches of China’s Yangtze river forced authorities to evacuate more than 100,000 people on Tuesday and threatened a 1,200-year-old world heritage site.

Staff, police and volunteers used sandbags to try to protect the 71-metre (233-foot) Leshan Giant Buddha, a UNESCO World Heritage site in southwestern Sichuan province, as muddy flood water rose over its toes for the first time since 1949, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Sichuan, through which the Yangtze river flows, raised its emergency response to the maximum level on Tuesday to cope with a new round of torrential rainfall.

The Yangtze Water Resources Commission, the government body that oversees the river, declared a red alert late on Tuesday, saying water at some monitoring stations was expected to exceed “guaranteed” flood protection levels by over 5 metres.

The Three Gorges Project, a massive hydroelectric facility designed in part to tame floods on the Yangtze, is expected to see water inflows rise to 74,000 cubic metres per second on Wednesday, the highest since it was built, the Ministry of Water Resources said.

The project restricts the amount of water flowing downstream by storing it in its reservoir, which has been over 10 metres higher than its official warning level for more than a month.

The facility was forced to raise water discharge volumes on Tuesday in order to “reduce flood control pressures”, the water ministry said.

Authorities have been at pains to show that the cascade of giant dams and reservoirs built along the Yangtze’s upper reaches have shielded the region from the worst of the floods this year, though critics say they might be making things worse.