ACT Partner Responds to Extreme Weather in China

|TOP|A partner organisation of Action by Churches (ACT) International is in China responding to the devastation that has come to regions of the country as extreme weather conditions continue.

Communities in Guangxi Province in southern China have struggled against a total of seven periods of strong rainfall between May and August this year – each resulting in flooding and severe economic loss.

The costs in Pubei county alone totalled nearly 320 million yuan (£21 million) after a record 772 mm of rain fell in the county in ten days during July, an equivalent of 44.5 percent of the average rainfall for an entire year.

The heavy rains across numerous regions have led to landslides and mudslides and have left 23 people dead, while one person remains missing. A further 884,862 remain affected.

|AD|ACT partner the Amity Foundation launched its emergency response to the devastation mid-August by distributing basic essential goods.

Fantgian village in Pubei suffered severe losses, as five people died and a total 1,350 – nearly half of the village’s population – were left struggling in the wake of the rains.

Families in the village who lost their homes received blankets, mosquito nets, sheets, bedding mats, cooking oil and rice.

Meanwhile, houses, fields and roads were severely damaged by mudslides in Fozilu village, leaving 25 of the 31 families in the village homeless. More than 60 villagers have been left with no choice but to live together and eat together in a simple, wooden-framed tent measuring no more than 80 square metres.

Villagers in Fozilu have been provided with food and other relief material by the Amity Foundation with the support of ACT.

More than 2,000 people have been killed in China this year by storms, floods, heat and drought, according to Reuters, as the head of the Beijing Climate Centre, Dong Wenjie, said the weather conditions that had hit the country this year were a prelude to weather patterns likely to become more extreme due to global warming.

The adverse weather conditions have already racked up a bill of 160 billion yuan (10.58 billion pounds) worth of damage this year alone.

“It's a reminder that global warming will bring about increasingly extreme weather events more often,” said Wenjie.