Revised Death Toll Tops 3,000 in Flooding, China Says

In a sharp upward revision of the toll exacted by this year’s massive floods, the Chinese government said Wednesday that more than 3,000 people have died because of the rising waters, nearly 1,000 more than previously estimated.

The new death count, the first update in three weeks, reflects the increasing devastation caused by overflowing rivers throughout China and comes amid increased speculation that the Communist regime has vastly understated the extent of damage.

Some witnesses contend that several thousand more than the official estimate have perished in the storms that have pushed the mighty Yangtze River to record levels in central China and swollen northeastern waterways. But officials rebut such figures, saying that “nothing could be further from the truth.”

“I can tell the press very responsibly that it’s true, there have been casualties as a result of the flooding,” Zhou Wenzhi, vice minister of water resources told reporters Tuesday. “But given the 1.2-billion population and the sheer scale of the flooding, the number of casualties is very, very small.”

On Wednesday, Vice Premier Wen Jiabao said that 3,004 people have died in the worst floods since 1954, the state-run New China News Agency reported. More than 1,300 of the victims were killed by the Yangtze alone.

In addition, 21 million hectares of land have been swamped and 5 million homes destroyed. Economic losses total at least $20 billion so far, Wen said. The government has pledged $366 million to help the ravaged areas recover as quickly as possible, but analysts fear that the floods could ultimately pare China’s economic growth rate by as much as 1 percentage point from the government’s optimistic hopes of an 8% rise this year.

The threat of more damage remains grave across the country as torrential rains continue. A seventh flood crest along the Yangtze surged through hard-hit Hubei province, where Wednesday’s evening newscast showed army soldiers inspecting saturated dikes with flashlights to guard against breaches.

“Take strict precautions, and fight to the death,” exhorted the People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece.

Authorities also are stepping up their campaign to control diseases such as dysentery, hepatitis and snail fever among the millions of people left homeless, many of whom are camping out on the levees themselves--the only spits of land still visible in parts of China. Some flood victims have resorted to drinking river water, even though it is polluted with debris and human waste.

Relief workers are scrambling to provide those displaced with tents, especially in the northeast, where chilly temperatures already herald the coming winter. Indeed, the flood season, typically confined to the summer, could carry on through December if typhoons shower the country with more misery, officials warned at a news conference Tuesday.

The news conference was called amid growing clamor by foreign media for more information, which the government has been characteristically stingy in providing.

Beijing’s embarrassment is perhaps compounded by its admission that human error is partly to blame for the scale of this year’s floods, mostly through the government’s poor land-use decisions.

Heavy logging to harvest timber and create more farmland has stripped the region of some of its natural protection against flooding. Rivers silt up as a result of erosion. Officials say they are trying to deal with these problems through reforestation and a ban on logging along the upper Yangtze.