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Letter from deluged Jiangxi island spurs residents into action
Several thousand people have returned to Jiangzhou town, Jiangxi province, to save their hometown from being flooded after the local flood control authority said in a letter that it was severely short-handed and needed young people to come home to help battle the swelling Yangtze River.
After reading the letter on social media on Saturday, Xu Xin immediately forwarded it on her WeChat account and asked if anyone else wanted to come along to help protect her hometown.
Jiangzhou is on an island surrounded by the Yangtze River, so flood control activities in the summer are familiar to the 20-year-old, who was born in the township in Jiujiang city.
Although she moved to the urban area of the city when she was a child, Xu often comes back during Spring Festival and school holidays, she said on Monday.
“This year, the flood is something else. It came much earlier, and the water level is shocking,” said Xu, who is a student at Jiangsu Vocational College of Finance and Economics in Huai’an city and returned home for summer holiday. “Many houses near the ferry dock of Jiangzhou are already underwater.”
There are only about 7,000 people living in Jiangzhou, and many of them are older people. Fewer than 1,000 people are capable of carrying out flood control activities and defending the 34.6-kilometer dam. The town is severely shorthanded in terms of flood control workers, the letter issued on July 10 said.
Jiangzhou has a population of about 40,000, but many people are working and studying elsewhere. The letter asked people between the ages of 18 and 60 to come home to fight the flood.
On Saturday, Xu contacted the officials at Hougeng village where she was born and volunteered to help.
As soon as she arrived at the village on
Sunday morning, she was sent to the dike to fill sandbags used to reinforce the structure guarding the township.
“There is no time to waste, and every pair of hands counts,” she said.
The ferry Xu took to the village was packed. Many people came back to ensure the safety of their older family members while many others returned to fight the flood, Xu said.
An average of 1,000 people have returned to join flood control work every day since the letter was published,
Luo Yun, Party chief of the Jiangzhou water resource commission, told CCTV on Sunday.
By Monday morning, the water level of the Yangtze River in Jiangzhou had surpassed the warning level by 3.3 meters, and the situation is growing worse. Children and older residents are required to evacuate the island, the local flood control authority said on Monday.
Meanwhile, more than 650 troops from the People’s Liberation Army and armed police officers have arrived in Jiangzhou to help fight the flood, the authority said.
As Xu continued her work on Sunday afternoon, the PLA troops appeared on the dam.
“With them by our side, I am quite confident that Jiangzhou and Jiangzhou people can beat the flood,” she said.