Many of China's rural poor, devastated by this summer's floods and landslides, await an uncertain future. While almost one and a half million people are reported to have fled their homes so far, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies fears that their needs cannot be met. Greater poverty is the likely consequence.
Already poor counties faced with a few
thousand homeless are struggling to resettle them. The means are not there,
the authorities are nowhere near coping and there may be worse to come.
On average, official statistics record, some four million people a year
need to be resettled or transferred as a consequence of natural disasters.
But even where houses still stand and people can return, farming communities have been ruined. The loss of livelihood through damage to land is enormous again this summer and debris brought down by mountain torrents has been strewn across fields by flash flooding. Nothing will grow there again.
Mitigating these losses in the short term will require continued relief efforts. Today the Chinese Red Cross launched a nationwide appeal to extend its operations. So far, it has responded in Anhui, Chonqing, Gansu, Guangxi, Guizhou, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Inner Mongolia, Jiangsu, Jilin, Shandong, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, providing food, clothing, tents, quilts, water purification tablets and disinfectant.
But helping rural communities to recover presents the greatest challenge. "It is clear that many rural poor are becoming poorer and disaster is one of the causes," says Alistair Henley, head of the International Federation's East Asia delegation.
Flood-hit rural families assisted by the Chinese Red Cross and the International Federation in 2003 reported an average annual income of between US$ 85 and 137, far below the international poverty threshold of a dollar a day. More evidence of a trend came last month when the Chinese government said the number of people living below the national poverty line of around $77 a year had grown by 800,000 in 2003.
"Consider then what the loss of assets through natural disaster means, the loss of your buffalo, your pigs, your chickens, even if you still have workable land," says Henley. "Everything you owned could have gone. You are left with the clothes you stand up in. Even if you had a dollar a day it would at best take years to recover."
Health is also suffering. Poor sanitation and unsafe and unprotected water supplies in rural areas present enormous hazards, particularly during flooding. Waterborne and sanitation-related illness accounts for more than 70 per cent of infectious disease in China and effluent from village latrines has contaminated surface and ground water again this year.
Since 2001, the Chinese Red Cross and the International Federation, supported by the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO), have been working to reduce the vulnerability of communities to recurring natural disaster by providing hygienic sanitation, improved water supplies, health education and disaster preparedness.
For further information, or to set up interviews, please contact:
In Beijing: John Sparrow, Regional Information Delegate Tel. + 86 10 6532 7162 / Mobile +86 1350 120 5972
In Geneva: Roy Probert, Information Officer Tel. + 41 22 730 42 96 / + 41 79 416 38 81
The Geneva-based International Federation promotes the humanitarian activities of 178 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies among vulnerable people. By coordinating international disaster relief and encouraging development support, it seeks to prevent and alleviate human suffering. The Federation, National Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross together, constitute the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.