Handan’s forgotten flood victims still bitter a month after deadly deluge
Villagers accuse local officials in Hebei city of ignoring their suffering and grievances
A month after deadly floods swept through Hebei province, people in Handan, one of the worst-hit areas, are still complaining about the way the local authorities handled the disaster, saying their suffering and grievances have largely been ignored due to the scant public and media attention they’ve received.
Scenes of destruction wrought by the flash flood on July 19 can still be seen in many parts of Handan, a prefecture-level city, with brick houses partially levelled and heaps of mud and trash inside homes and on roads yet to be cleared.
Officials said it’s time to move on with our lives despite our heartbreaking experiences
While villagers in neighbouring Xingtai who lost loved ones complain about inadequate compensation, many Handan residents are still searching for missing relatives – mostly on their own.
In the hardest hit part of Handan, the city of Wuan, where at least 30 people were killed and 29 others are listed as missing, villagers are bitter that local authorities have done little to help locate the bodies of their loves ones or to provide much-needed emergency supplies and relief materials.
The truth about heavy casualties in the neighbouring prefecture-level city of Xingtai was not made public until angry villagers blocked a main road and clashed with police in a desperate bid to protest against an alleged official cover-up and inadequate disaster relief efforts.
Flood victims in Handan say that with all the media attention focused on Xingtai, their plight has been unfairly forgotten.
Cuilu villager Qi Qiang, whose two children and mother-in-law were killed in the floods, made a trip this week to Daxian village in Xingtai, which received the most media attention.
“While Daxian villagers said they had been offered 280,000 yuan (HK$327,445) in compensation for each person killed in the floods, we are told by Handan officials that we will only get 10,000 yuan for each of our loved ones,” he said. “I simply want to know why we should be treated so differently. Are we still living in the same country and in the same province?”