August 9, 2016
LONGCAO, China — The hardest part about getting into Longcao was not the floodwater, or the debris blocking the roads. The biggest obstacle was the cluster of police officers standing guard under the archway at the village’s main entrance, peering into cars as they passed by.
“If anyone asks, I don’t know why you’re here,” our taxi driver said when we told her that we wanted to visit this place, a hamlet of 4,500 people in China’s rural Hebei Province that was hit last month by the region’s worst flooding in 50 years.
After the 15-mile drive from the nearest city center, she left us on the side of the road — out of sight of the police. We stood in the blazing sun. The villagers who had promised to escort us in had stopped answering our calls. We would have to sneak in on foot.
Longcao (pronounced LONG-tsow) was one of hundreds of villages across Hebei and Henan Provinces that were overwhelmed by flash floods the night of July 19. The authorities reported at least 164 people killed, including two in Longcao, an elderly woman and a man with disabilities. Another man, last seen trying to save his sheep, was still missing.
Flooding is a perennial problem in China, and over the centuries, flood control has traditionally been seen as a test of the government’s legitimacy. Emperor Yu, the founder of the Xia Dynasty, is said to have been given the throne because of his achievements controlling the floodwaters of the Yellow River.
In July, some local governments admitted to handling the floods poorly — in the city of Xingtai, four officials were suspended for “dereliction of duty” — but officials here had been silent. Villagers upset that the officials had failed to issue a warning or provide more aid in the aftermath of the flood staged a protest, blocking a nearby highway and clashing with the police.
Scattered firsthand reports filtered out on social media, and we decided to visit.
Like many villages in Hebei, Longcao survives on small-scale farming and light manufacturing. The main road is lined with hardware stores selling machine parts made locally, and the fields that surround it teem with corn and wheat. Beijing is only 270 miles to the northeast, but the local dialect is nearly unintelligible to a resident of the capital.
On the day we arrived, the floodwaters that had poured over the banks of the nearby Ming River had mostly receded. Rows of corn lay flat against the muddy ground, as if hit by a tornado rather than a flood. Lingering pools of water stagnated in 90-degree heat.
A sign scrawled on the side of a shack advertised “Anti-Rot Injections.” Several of the corpses that had floated down the river had not been identified.
At the western edge of the village, away from the police, the dirt road turned to mud, which soon turned to knee-deep water. It was quiet, except for cicadas and the occasional diesel engine. A backhoe moved dirt to fill in narrow paths that ran between concrete and brick houses.
Before long, we came upon a short, bald farmer, Dong Jianzeng, who welcomed us to Longcao. His tanned chest was bare, and he wore open-toed sandals that revealed feet caked with mud. He offered to show us around and led us down an alley to his home.
The concrete house looked as if it had been robbed by a sloppy thief. Mr. Dong’s possessions were still there, but not in their original locations. Clothes and quilts lay drying in the courtyard. The bedroom was empty, except for the bed frame, which was filled with mud.
“The water came up to here,” Mr. Dong said, pointing to a spot on a wall just above his waist and just below a wedding photograph of his son and his daughter-in-law.
The night of the flood, Mr. Dong said, he was woken by neighbors banging on the front door. When he opened it, the water level was still below his ankles. Soon it was up to his calves. He, his wife and his son climbed up to the roof and stayed there till dawn.
The dozen or so villagers we spoke to complained that officials had not sounded the evacuation alarm until 11 p.m. By then, the water was rising fast. They said many residents had not heard the alarm over the sound of the rain. Then, several villagers said, it took four days for relief workers to arrive.
“The government didn’t care,” said Dong Shefa (many people in Longcao have the surname Dong), a burly truck driver in rubber boots. He said it would take a year’s income to repair the damage to his home.
Frustration boiled over on July 23, when villagers swarmed onto the highway running past Longcao. Residents showed us video of police officers dragging a woman off the road and of a villager lying face down on the pavement, struggling to move, apparently after being beaten.
We had been talking to residents for about 30 minutes when a group of local officials wearing polo shirts suddenly appeared. One of them promised to give us a “comprehensive introduction to the whole situation” and suggested that we go with him. Another asked one of the male villagers who was not wearing a shirt to “put on some clothes.”
Dong Jianbo, a sturdy man in a white tank top, got up in his face. “You only came after we protested,” he shouted. “We didn’t even have a sip of water. You didn’t know if we were alive or dead.”
A small crowd had gathered in the home of an old woman named Liu Jiao’e, who was wailing. One of the officials snapped: “If you have something to say, say it. Don’t cry.”
The officials took us to the home of a villager who praised the government’s handling of the flood, and then to a hospital, where flood victims said they were receiving good medical care. Later, the officials led us to a restaurant where a party official named Zhu Jianbo defended the government’s response over a spread of local delicacies including donkey intestine.
“My voice wasn’t like this before,” Mr. Zhu said with a rasp. “But that night, when I was yelling at the villagers, my voice was destroyed.”
Mr. Zhu, who wore a New Balance T-shirt, said the county flood control office had notified the local authorities on the night of the floods that a reservoir upstream would need to discharge a large volume of water. He said he and a team of officials had immediately begun going from village to village, calling on people to evacuate.
“We were yelling into loudspeakers, banging on wash basins,” he said.
Rescue teams arrived in Longcao the next morning, he said, adding that many residents were moved to a nearby school and given food, water and quilts. Mr. Zhu acknowledged that people were still upset but suggested that a rival party leader was “using the flood issue to provoke the masses.”
“They’re wondering whether the government will compensate them for their losses,” he said of the villagers. “We’re working on that, but we need time.”
Many of the villagers had followed us around to hear what the officials had to say, and by the time we left, they seemed less agitated.
A few days later, heavy rain again poured on Longcao. This time, the government issued a warning early but did not call for an evacuation. Many villagers left anyway.
“Once bitten by a snake,” Mr. Zhu said, “you’re scared of ropes for 10 years.”
