Rumours swirl over China flooding death toll

Beijing: Residents impatient for official updates compiled their own death tolls Thursday for last weekend’s massive flooding in Beijing and snapped up survival gear following new forecasts of rain, reflecting deep mistrust of the government’s handling of the disaster.

The city government has not issued new death toll figures since Sunday, the day after Beijing’s biggest downpour in 61 years overwhelmed drainage systems, swamped downtown underpasses and sent flash floods roiling through the city’s outskirts.

Beijing says 37 people were killed, but state media reports Thursday said the toll could be as high as 61 and online rumours put it in the hundreds.

Officials have kept a tight lid on information on the disaster, mindful that any failure to cope with the flooding could undermine the country’s leadership as it undergoes a once-a-decade transition, with Beijing city leaders a part of that reshuffling. China’s communist government has justified its one-party rule in part by delivering economic growth and maintaining stability in the face of bubbling unrest and periodic mass disasters like Saturday’s flooding.

In Beijing’s worst-affected Fangshan district, residents were compiling their own death toll online using both public and private chat rooms on the popular Baidu website. The toll was not being posted publicly, but some online accounts said the number was more than 300. There was no way to independently confirm the tally.

A separate Google document also was circulating on Twitter with a list of 17 confirmed dead or missing including their names and genders.

Li Chengpeng, a writer based in the southwestern province of Sichuan, said he was collecting names of the dead from flooding in Beijing and elsewhere. At least 95 were killed after weekend storms hit 17 provinces and cities. “We need to commemorate the people who have died in tragic events,” Li said. “But there are so many of them now, and they go uninvestigated, unaccounted for. Nothing happens after these incidents, and the people die and no figures are given to the public? No acknowledgment? No explanation?”

“We know we cannot expect the government to do this work, so we have to do it. Civil society needs to do it,” Li said. “Now people are using the Internet ... to do the job the government does not want to do.”

The Changjing Daily newspaper reported online that Beijing city officials told reporters at a news conference Wednesday night that the death toll had yet to be finalised because officials were still trying to identify the bodies.

It added that after the news conference when reporters swarmed the stage to get additional comment, one journalist with the official broadcaster China Central Television asked a spokesman why they didn’t give the new death toll when she could see from the paper in their hands that the toll was 61 dead including five civil servants. The officials left quickly without responding, the report said. The journalist wasn’t identified by name in the report.

Although China can be tight-lipped when it comes to mass casualties from natural and manmade disasters, it has improved since 2003 when its lack of transparency during the SARS outbreak was blamed for public panic. Death tolls are usually released in a more timely fashion, but the government still routinely withholds the names and biographical details of the deceased, making it hard for citizens to check their accuracy.