1975 Banqiao Dam failure

Construction Starting in the early 1950s, three major reservoirs and dams, including the Banqiao, Shimantan and Baisha dams, were under construction in Zhumadian. By 1953, the construction work at the three reservoirs was completed, but a "reinforcement" project on Banqiao and Shimantan dams was further carried out from 1955 to 1956 following the instructions of the Soviet Union. Tan Zhenlin, then Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China, issued the guidelines on reservoir construction during his trip to Henan Province: "focusing on retaining water, building more small reservoirs". At the time, "retaining more water" meant "more revolutionary". On the other hand, the intense production of steel during the Great Leap Forward as well as the "Learn from Dazhai in agriculture" program launched by Mao severely damaged the ecosystem in the Zhumadian region. The percentage of forest cover dropped drastically and land degradation was prevalent, which, according to most experts, were the major causes of floods. Whistleblowers Chen Xing, then chief engineer of the dam projects, opposed the ideas of constructing too many dams as well as prioritizing the goal of "retaining water". He pointed out that the local geographical conditions made it unreasonable to overly emphasize the reservoir's function of water storage, because otherwise there was risk of creating serious floods and other disasters, such as alkalinization of farm land. Nevertheless, Chen's warning was ignored and he was criticized for being a "rightist" and "opportunist"; he was subsequently removed from his post and was sent to Xinyang. Cultural Revolution The collapse of the dams occurred during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), when most people were busy with the revolution and had little time with the dams while it was raining heavily. In fact, there were no resources or equipment available to prevent the flood. After the disaster, Xinhua journalist Zhang Guangyou (张广友) visited the area and interviewed several experts, who were afraid to express their opinions in public lest they be condemned for "questioning the Cultural Revolution" and "questioning Chairman Mao". However, the experts told Zhang privately that the degradation and the damage to the ecosystem due to Mao's Great Leap Forward were the major causes of the collapse of the dams. == Timeline ==

August 4–5 According to testimonies from residents, the summer had been very dry that year, with a drought starting from July. On August 4, sudden heavy rain started, which would continue for the following days. In Queshan County, 1,100 mm of rain was measured over three days. By August 5, many smaller reservoirs already reached their storage limit. That same evening, Banqiao town, near the dam, started to flood. The sluice gates were not able to handle the overflow of water partially due to sedimentation blockage. At noon, local officials held an emergency meeting and found that no explosives or other equipment was available to speed up the water outflow. By 4 pm, another 13 hour rainstorm started. At 7 pm, residents of nearby downstream towns of Banqiao and Shahedian in Biyang County received evacuation notices, but those on the other side of the river in Suiping County did not. The resulting flood waters caused a wave wide and high in Suiping that rushed onto the plains below at nearly , almost wiping out an area long and wide, and creating temporary lakes as large as . Seven county seats, Suiping, Xiping, Ru'nan, Pingyu, Xincai, Luohe, and Linquan were inundated, as were thousands of square kilometers of countryside and countless communities. Evacuation orders had not been fully delivered due to weather conditions and poor communications. Telegraphs failed, signal flares fired by Unit 34450 were misunderstood, telephones were rare, and some messengers were caught by the flood. The dikes on the Quan River collapsed in the evening of August 9, and the entire Linquan county in Fuyang, Anhui was inundated. As the Boshan Dam, with a capacity of 400 million m3, crested and the water released from the failures of Banqiao and Shimantan was rushing downstream, air strikes were made against several other dams to protect the Suya Lake dam, already holding 1.2 billion m3 of water. Following weeks A total of 102 kilometers of the Jingguang Railway, a major artery from Beijing to Guangzhou, was cut for 48 days, as were other crucial communications lines. The floods only fully receded two weeks later, revealing rotting corpses everywhere. == Aftermath ==

The damage to the Zhumadian area was estimated to be about (). The Zhumadian government appealed to the whole nation for help, and received more than () in donations. Cover-up and declassification After the disaster, the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government remained silent to the public, while no media were allowed to make reports. In 1987, Yu Weimin (于为民), a journalist from Henan Daily wrote a book on the disaster, while in 1995 the news agency took the lead and published details about the disaster to the public. For example, while only 827 out of 6,000 people died in the evacuated community of Shahedian just below Banqiao Dam, half of a total of 36,000 people died in the unevacuated Wencheng commune of Suipin County next to Shahedian, and the Daowencheng Commune was wiped from the map, killing all 9,600 citizens. • In the 1980s, several representatives of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference including Qiao Peixin (乔培新), Sun Yueqi (孙越崎), Lin Hua (林华), Qian Jiaju (千家驹), Wang Xingrang (王兴让), Lei Tianjue (雷天觉), Xu Chi (徐驰) and Lu Qinkan (陆钦侃) revealed that the death toll of the 1975 Banqiao Dam failure was 230,000. Interestingly, Luo ChengZheng (骆承政), one of the authors of the book, wrote "85,600 people died in the Banqiao Dam failure in 1975" in one edition of the book. • In 2005, the Discovery Channel show Ultimate 10 rated the Banqiao Dam failure as the greatest technological catastrophe in the world, beating the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union. Discovery cited the death toll to be 240,000, which included 140,000 deaths due to famine, infections and epidemics. Governmental assessment The Chinese government deems the dam failure a natural one as opposed to man-made disaster, with government sources placing an emphasis on the amount of rainfall as opposed to poor engineering and construction. ''People's Daily'' has maintained that the dam was designed to survive a once-in-1000-years flood (300 mm of rainfall per day) but a once-in-2000-years flood occurred in August 1975, following the collision of Typhoon Nina and a cold front. The typhoon was blocked for two days before its direction ultimately changed from northeastward to westward. As a result of this near stationary thunderstorm system, more than a year's worth of rain fell within 24 hours, which weather forecasts failed to predict. New records were set, at per day, exceeding the average annual precipitation of about . China Central Television reported that the typhoon disappeared from radar as it degraded. According to Xinhua, the forecast was for rainfall of 100 mm by the Beijing-based Central Meteorological Observatory. After the flood, a summit of National Flood Prevention and Reservoir Security at Zhengzhou, Henan was held by the Department of Water Conservancy and Electricity, and a nationwide reservoir security examination was performed. == See also ==