Nanning and Guigang, two cities in China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, each held meetings on 21 August on recovery and reconstruction after typhoon Meisak. As of midnight that day, 16 counties, cities and districts across the two had more than 1.65 million people affected, 159 dead and 10 out of contact. Xinhua reports that the work has moved into a phase combining recovery and reconstruction, an overall lift in disaster-prevention and relief capacity, and high-quality economic and social development. Those present stood for a silent tribute.
In Nanning, 90 townships and subdistricts across 11 counties and districts were hit; 579,700 people were displaced, 23,300 evacuated urgently and 78,300 moved into temporary accommodation. It was explained at the meeting — the Xinhua dispatch does not say by whom — that after public security organs went from house to house, checked, cross-verified and matched the records, the city's toll as of midnight on 21 August stood at 136 dead and 10 out of contact. Of those, 107 dead and 7 out of contact came from the flooding when the Liulan and Yunbiao reservoirs failed. Guigang reported 1.073 million people affected across five counties and districts, 205,000 evacuated urgently and 15,000 moved to temporary accommodation, with 23 dead. The house-to-house procedure is described only for Nanning's figure.
An earlier announcement had put the numbers very differently. At a Nanning press conference on 9 July, the toll across Guangxi was given as 39 dead and 9 out of contact, including the flood from the Liulan reservoir breach. Xinhua noted then that identification of some of the dead was taking time, so the dead and the missing might overlap. A Nanning vice-mayor said at that conference that the reservoir flood alone had killed 26, five of whom were being identified, with seven out of contact.
The State Council set up an investigation and assessment team for the "7·6" Liulan reservoir dam failure. It is led by the Ministry of Emergency Management, with the ministries of natural resources, housing and urban-rural development, water resources, agriculture and rural affairs, public security, finance and transport taking part, along with the national development and reform commission, the ministry of industry and information technology, the China Meteorological Administration, the national energy administration, the national fire and rescue administration, and the Guangxi regional government. The team held its first plenary session in Nanning on 24 July, chaired by Chen Min, a vice-minister of emergency management. The meeting stressed that the team must review the whole course of the disaster, establish its causes, and identify the problems and responsibility across prevention, response and emergency handling. A telephone line and a mailbox have been set up for members of the public.
Both cities set timetables. Nanning said it would restore production and ordinary life within half a year and finish the main reconstruction tasks in about a year. Guigang said it would work back from deadlines on repairing and rebuilding homes, resuming operations and restoring damaged facilities, treating urban flooding and reservoir safety as priorities.
Guanchazhe, citing public material, reports that Meisak came ashore on 3 July on the coast of Lingshui Li Autonomous County in Hainan, the first typhoon to make landfall in China that year. It crossed Hainan into the Gulf of Tonkin, redeveloped, strengthened to a severe tropical storm on the afternoon of 4 July and made a second landfall around nine that evening on the coast of Quang Ninh in Vietnam at 28 metres per second. It held together over Guangxi before weakening, and the Central Meteorological Observatory stopped numbering it at eight in the evening on 6 July. On 16 July, Zhou Yunkui, a deputy director of the Guangxi emergency management department, called Meisak one of the most serious natural disasters Guangxi has faced in recent years. Guanchazhe adds that Guangxi activated level-one emergency responses for flood and drought control and for natural disaster relief, the first time in the region's history of disaster response, and that the previous level-one activation was for the snow and ice disaster of 2008.
Why it is on the board
Fourth on Baidu's hot-search list and 29th on Weibo's when we collected. Those two are the only lens we have for China — no YouTube, no Google Trends. And though four outlets carried this, all four were running the same Xinhua dispatch from Nanning, so it is one account rather than four.
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