State Council stresses work on flood relief, rebuilding

The State Council, China's Cabinet, has stressed the principle of putting people and their lives first as the country strives to cope with the ongoing flood season, which has seen extreme and devastating rainfall.

Rescuers ferry an injured villager to safety in Beijing's Mentougou district on Tuesday. As of Sunday, more than 5,500 residents had been evacuated from their homes in the district, which was hit by heavy rainfall and flooding triggered by Typhoon Doksuri. JU HUANZONG/XINHUA

The flood season is not yet over, so more typhoons are expected to make landfall in the country and some areas may be hit by regional downpours. This means that the country may have to simultaneously face the tasks of disaster control and post-disaster reconstruction, according to a statement issued on Tuesday after a State Council executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Qiang.

It stressed that authorities across the country should thoroughly implement President Xi Jinping's instructions on flood control work.

Upholding the principle of putting the people's interests first and that nothing is more precious than people's lives, the statement called for the rolling out of effective measures to enhance flood control and emergency response and all-out efforts to safeguard people's lives and property, as well as ensure social stability, the statement said.

Local governments and relevant departments should have adequate precautionary measures for possible major floods and potential major risks. Work on situation assessment and early warning should be further ramped up, and the key areas for flood control should be closely monitored, it said.

All flood control and emergency rescue measures should be implemented in a detailed manner, and more efforts should be made to guard against secondary disasters, the statement noted.

Authorities in flood-hit areas should spare no efforts to search for the missing in order to minimize the number of casualties, it said.

They should also make every possible effort to meet the basic needs of the affected people, and ensure that they have access to food, clothing, temporary shelter, clean drinking water and timely medical services.

The statement emphasized environmental disinfection for epidemic prevention as another key task in post-disaster relief, saying that adequate measures should be put in place to ensure that there are no major epidemics after major disasters.

In moves to restore normal production and daily life as soon as possible, governments in areas affected by devastating floods should accelerate the repairing of roads and infrastructure for power and water supplies and communications, it said, adding that importance should also be attached to stabilizing market supply and the price of commodities.

The statement also pointed to the need to make urgent efforts to restore damaged farmland and agricultural infrastructure, stressing that authorities should also take measures to improve the supply of agricultural materials.

It pointed out that local governments should move into action to rebuild houses destroyed by floods to ensure that people can return home or move into new houses with adequate heating facilities before winter.

They should forge ahead with the reconstruction of schools, so that all students will have safe facilities to return to in the coming semester, as well as other public buildings, such as hospitals and nursing homes.

The statement underscored the importance of a forward-looking approach on post-disaster work in northern China, noting that governments in the region should strengthen the planning for and construction of infrastructure for water resources management to enhance their capacity to tackle flood and drought disasters.