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In Sichuan province, China, weeks of heavy rain have triggered severe flooding and intense landslides in townships across the western province. Since 7 July 2013, houses, buildings, crop fields and roads have be buried and damaged by gushing torrents of muddied water and falling earth from mountainsides. 13,000 houses have collapsed and 1,565,000 hectares of croplands are damaged. About 286,000 people in Sichuan are seriously affected.
15-year-old Zhang Zhiying, whose family from Wenchuan county has escaped to a temporary holding site, recounts the floods: “The day it was raining very heavily we were all at home. The rain was quite scary as you could see water flow forcefully down from the mountains. Everywhere around our home was flooded or washed away.”
While their house did not flood, Zhiying’s parents decided that it was safer to take Zhiying and her nine-year-old brother to an evacuation site in the centre of the county. The place, an elementary school building, has held the family for six days since.
Life in the temporary holding site has been difficult for Zhiying. While there are televisions and electric points for people to charge their mobile phones in the camp where Zhiying and family live, there are no shower facilities, and over 600 people live in the camp. Zhiying and her parents sleep along a corridor with many others, which Zhiying has found uncomfortable.
“It is inconvenient for me as a girl of 15 years old to change my clothes when I’m living along a corridor. There is nowhere for us to take a shower.”
To make life better for his children, Zhiying’s father returns to home from time to time to gather some essential items.
At present, the local government is providing relief food items and drinking water to flood-affected families. Three meals consisting of dry rations like instant noodles are given to families, and young children and the elderly are prioritised to sleep in the building’s gymnasium. However, dry clothes and toiletries like soap, toilet paper, toothbrushes and toothpaste are still needed.
Save the Children is distributing immediate relief packages to affected children and families in Wenchuan and Beichuan counties. Save the Children’s first batch of relief items has included essential items such as toilet paper, sanitary napkins, wet tissues, hand soap and diapers. With the help of the local government, the children’s aid agency has transported relief goods to worst-affected areas.
