Residents gather to remove a fallen tree blocking a road in Changle, China, in Fujian province on Saturday. Photo credit: CNN

(CNN) August 10, 2009 – A deadly typhoon that slammed into China’s coastal provinces and Taiwan over the weekend has displaced nearly one million people and left dozens missing, state-run media reported Monday.

High winds and torrential rain of Typhoon Morakot hit coastal provinces Fujian and Zhejian hardest, and caused the worst flooding in decades in Taiwan — where flood waters as high as 7 feet were reported, China Daily reported.

The deadly typhoon swept across the Philippines and Taiwan’s Hualien region before crashing into eastern China, claiming nearly two dozens lives along the way, the newspaper reported.

The storm — measuring about 1,600 kilometers (about 1,000 miles) across — continued to pummel coastal China Monday, but forecasters said it is unlikely that Morakot would reach Shanghai, the country’s largest city, which sits further north along the coast.

Government officials expect the typhoon to cause more than 8.5 million yuan ($1.2 billion) in damages, the newspaper said.

Video from Taiwan showed a six-story hotel crashing into the floodwaters coursing below. The well-known hot springs resort had evacuated before the collapse.

At least seven people were killed, 32 wounded and 46 unaccounted for, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency.

In China, five houses were destroyed as the front of the typhoon brought flooding rains to Wenzhou City in neighboring Zhejiang province just after 8 a.m. Sunday, Xinhua said. Three adults and a 4-year-old boy were buried in debris about 8 a.m. Rescue workers were unable to save the child, and he died, the city’s flood-control headquarters told the news agency.

A “red alert” — the highest degree in danger levels — was issued in Zhejiang, where more than 35,000 vessels were called back from sea, China Daily reported, citing provincial flood control officials.

More than 300 homes collapsed, and more than 16,000 hectares (39,500 acres) were flooded, Xinhua said. The city’s airport was closed and 56 roads were rendered impassable.

As the eye of the storm reached Beibi, the sky turned completely dark, and people caught in rainstorms staggered as they used flashlights to see, Xinhua reported. Trees were being uprooted and torn apart by damaging winds.

Farmers were attempting to recapture large amounts of fish, flushed from mudflat fish farms by high winds, Xinhua said.

Nearly a million people were evacuated from Fujian and Zhejiang provinces as Morakot approached. Late Friday, the storm lashed Taiwan, killing two people, wounding 15 and knocking off power to about 650,000 households, according to Hong Kong’s Metro Radio.

Meanwhile, another typhoon hit west Japan on Monday, with 12 people confirmed dead.

Source: CNN

(The Guardian UK) May 18, 2009 – When the desert winds tear up the sands outside his front door, Huang Cuikun, pictured below in a dried-up riverbed near his home, says he is choked by dust, visibility falls to a few metres and the crops are ruined.

Dust storms hit his village in Gansu province more often than in the past. The water table is falling. Temperatures rise year by year. Yet Huang says this is an improvement. Three years ago the government relocated him from an area where the river ran dry and the well became so salinated that people who drank from it fell sick.

“Life is easier now,” he says, puffing on a cigarette in the new brick home that the authorities have given him. “When we lived in Donghuzhen, we had little water and the crops couldn’t grow. Our income was tiny and we were very poor.”

Huang is one of millions of Chinese eco-refugees who have been resettled because their home environments degraded to the point where they were no longer fit for human habitation. The government says more than 150 million people will have to be moved. Water shortages exacerbated by over-irrigation and climate change are the main cause.

The problem is most severe in the north-west, where desert sands are swallowing up farmland, homes and towns. Huang lives in Mingqin, a shrinking oasis area that government advisers privately describe as an “ecological disaster area”.

The Yellow river is diverted more than 62 miles (100km) to replenish dried-up reservoirs and aquifers in Minqin, where the population has swollen from 860,000 to 2.3 million over the last 60 years, even as water supplies have declined.

It is not enough. The Tengger desert is encroaching from the south-east and the Badain Jaran desert from the north-west. Since 1950 the oasis has shrunk by 111 square miles (288 sq km), while the number of annual superdust storms has increased more than fourfold. In Liangzhou district, 240 of the 291 springs have dried up.

Global warming is adding to the problem. Evaporation rates are rising, along with temperatures. According to a study by the Centre for Agricultural Water Research in China, 64% of the reduced stream-flow in the area is attributable to climate variation.

The government pays many farmers to cease production and has relocated thousands of others, like Huang, out of the worst affected areas. The government has given him a new home and land, but the desert winds still howl outside the door and his fields are bordered by sand dunes. Workers in the fields wear masks to protect their faces from the dust storms that whip in from the dunes.

Huang likes his new home, but with the climate getting hotter and drier, he cannot be complacent that it is secure from the sands.

“It’s just 2km or 3km from here to the desert, says Huang, so we have taken every measure we can think of to stop the desert moving closer.To survive, we must control the desert. Huang know the trees alone cannot save his home. “In Minqin, our greatest need is water. That is our lifeline. Without water, we cannot survive.”

Source: The Guardian UK

Related Links:
“China: Environmental Refugees” – Sean Gallagher, for the Pulitzer Center