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China on highest flood alert as 38M people evacuated
- byoung2 6y agoIt is impressive that they were able to evacuate 38m people.
- ss7pro 6y agoChina ;) they build a hospital for few thousand people in a few days
- trhway 6y agoit is hard to imagine where do you evacuate so many people to - temp housing? relatives?
- senectus1 6y agoGhost cities...
- lvturner 6y agoChina is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to China. Butchering of Douglas Adams' work aside, it's true, having taken a train a few times across bits of mainland China - it just. does. not. stop. and you can witness constant construction too.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago> China is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. China is almost exactly the same size as the United States.
- smcgaw 6y agoThere's probably more than a few of us on HN from smaller countries who would also find the size of the US mind-boggling.
- kaybe 6y agoEspecially us from higher latitudes whose worldview is influenced by the Mercator projection.
- arethuza 6y agoA useful link that helps with that problem: https://thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTYxNDU5OTQ.MzgwMzc5Mg*MzU0NzE2NTA(MjAyMDQ3OA~!CONTIGUOUS_US*MTAwMjQwNzU.MjUwMjM1MTc(MTc1)MA~!IN*NTI2NDA1MQ.Nzg2MzQyMQ)MQ~!CN*OTkyMTY5Nw.NzMxNDcwNQ(MjI1)Mg https://thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!MTYxNDU5OTQ.MzgwMzc5Mg*...
- hombre_fatal 6y agoGreat site. Never realized Greenland fits inside the USA. Dragging a country to/from the poles really establishes how ridiculous the projection is.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago> Dragging a country to/from the poles really establishes how ridiculous the projection is. I mean, the pole is an infinitesimal point that _any_ rectangular projection must expand to the size of the equator.
- arethuza 6y agoI don't think it's fair to say it is ridiculous - it has pros and cons - with the distortion of areas towards the poles definitely being one of the latter https://connectusfund.org/13-major-pros-and-cons-of-mercator-projection https://connectusfund.org/13-major-pros-and-cons-of-mercator...
- baybal2 6y agoChina has 60 million empty apartments... The government should think about that.
- dragonelite 6y agoIsn't China's urbanization rate quiet low at the moment. Better to build some reserve if you need to move people from rural to urban areas. So if you have to move hundreds of millions of people into urban areas its probably a good thing to have some housing reserves build up to facilitate those migrations.
- peroporque 6y agoChina has been doing that for 3 decades. The target is a 60% urbanization rate. That's why there are so many "empty apartments". Because they are build and it takes a year or two to fill them up, so it looks like they are "empty". I lived in two such developments during the years that I lived in China. It's interesting to see the policies used to fill them. And to come back to the place a year later, when it is crowded.
- dragonelite 6y agoMost developed nations have like a urbanization rate of at least 80+%. To reach developed nations urbanization rate china would need to move like 300 million people into urban areas, doing some quick maths.
- joecool1029 6y agoI found this number highly suspect. As they were unable to even cite an official making this claim I'll provide a source that does give a more realistic figure: https://vietnamtimes.org.vn/433-rivers-across-china-exceed-alerting-levels-xi-jinping-admits-flooding-is-grim-22330.html https://vietnamtimes.org.vn/433-rivers-across-china-exceed-a...
- senectus1 6y agoI mean, it's still an impressive number of people... but yeah a lot less than 38M: So far, floods have affected 37.89 million people in 27 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. As many as 141 people are dead or missing, and 28,000 houses have collapsed. A total of 2.246 million emergency evacuations have been made, according to Zheng Guoguang, vice minister of emergency management
- boomboomsubban 6y agoBoth articles mention the 38 million number, I suspect that is the number of people ordered to evacuate their home while the number who have actually evacuated the area is the three million number.
- entropea 6y agoI've worked emergency communications and 911 dispatch during wildfires and a surprising amount of people don't leave their homes during an evacuation order.
- onetimemanytime 6y agoMy guess is that the region has 38milion. Like, evacuate Texas, but in reality only x million might be on the flood plain.
- chvid 6y agoThat would be impressive however it is probably not correct. Here is state-sponsored Xinhua's coverage of the same story: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-07/14/c_139209909.htm http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-07/14/c_139209909.htm China battles unprecedented floods around its largest freshwater lake
- cbmuser 6y agoAnd another proof why nuclear power is the safest form of power generation.
- deusum 6y agoMeh... This anecdotally suggests that hydro is less safe than predicted (vis a vis climate change). There's plenty of similar catastrophes related to nuclear. Comparing apples to oranges and all that. Evacuating 38mil is impressive, no less.
- orwin 6y agoThere is 3 catastrophes related to nuclear. The only one where radiation actually killed people was Chernobyl. Displacement of hundred thousands, considered contaminated thus excluded by their peers, probably caused more life-years lost than the radiation itself. The UNSCEAR (GIEC group1 equivalent for radiation) rapport on Fukushima is enlightening. Nuclear have a lot of drawback too (mining pollution, waste disposal) but is probably the energy ressource that killed the less people/MWh produced, and for sure the one destroying the less ecosystem/MWh. I used to be anti-nuclear for the wrong reasons until an observation internship in a hospital were i learned how dangerous radiation actually was, but realistically, until a new breakthrough on superconductor is found and allow us a less expensive, more lasting magnetic containment for plasma, i don't see any other energy that can replace coal/gaz.
- flukus 6y agoThere were plenty of near misses too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accidents_and_incidents#Nuclear_meltdown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_and_radiation_accident...
- blackrock 6y agoIf I recall, there were always stories of southern China getting flooded every few decades. Tens of millions would get wiped out and killed by the floods. So, this is a very tragic and cyclic event. Thus, they were determined to build the great Three Gorges Dam, to control the flooding. And even at the cost, where it would at least hold back the floods for a few decades, then this might be worth it, in order to prevent regular destabilization. The society could at least grow and prosper for a while. This could buy the society enough time to build other fortifications, or do something to mitigate a future disaster. These people here live in a flood plain. The water is washing down from the mountains, and the government didn’t build enough flood run off to handle the torrential downpour. In the future, they should probably build their newer buildings on top of a 10 foot high concrete base. Or build more flood run off channels. It’s easy to be a naysayer and cast your doubt about something. It’s much harder to actually do the research, and try to engineer something to hold back the forces of Mother Nature, for the greater benefit of their society.
- over5000 6y agoKarma.
- sam_goody 6y ago"Looks like we should gotten a different copy of 2020... this one has a virus!" A wacky year that has thrown a lot at us (and election fun has barely begun)!
- bamboozled 6y agoChina can't stop burning coal either, unfortunately they'll just get more of this.
- perfunctory 6y agoAll of us will get more of this and other stuff.
- bamboozled 6y agoYes this is true, just some nations contributing a lot more than others.
- perfunctory 6y agoYes, but it's complicated - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipVxxxqwBQw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipVxxxqwBQw
- lovemenot 6y agoChina will certainly stop burning coal when the economics of doing so makes sense to China. How long will that take? I suspect sooner than you might imagine. Coal is already uneconomic against renewable energy in many scenarios and this trend continues inexorably. Coal is not only our worst large-scale energy resource in terms of global warming. It also produces local pollution, which disproportionately impacts air quality in Beijing. The rate of change in China is fast. Following behind other countries, they aim to become the global technology leader. China has already demonstrated intent and ability to economically dominate high volume technology industries in pursuit of its own interest: LCD panel, solar panel etc. Next comes battery. Currently the most significant constraint on renewable energy deployment. If things pan out the way I hope, then good for China. And good for the rest of us too.
- ancientworldnow 6y agoChina has 300-500 additional coal plants currently in construction or planned over the next ten years.
- kwistzhaderach 6y agoXi is losing the Mandate of Heaven