The 2010 Gansu mudslide was a deadly
mudslide
A mudflow or mud flow is a form of mass wasting involving fast-moving flow of debris that has become liquified by the addition of water. Such flows can move at speeds ranging from 3 meters/minute to 5 meters/second. Mudflows contain a significa ...
in
Zhouqu County,
Gansu Province
Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province.
The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibeta ...
,
Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
Gānnán Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (; ) is an autonomous prefecture in southern Gansu Province, China, bordering Linxia to the north, Dingxi to the northeast, Longnan to the east and Aba (Sichuan province) to the south . It includes Xiahe a ...
, China that occurred at midnight on 8 August 2010. The floods were triggered after decades of
clear cut logging practices had reduced the ability of the watershed to absorb heavy rainfall.
It was the most deadly individual disaster of the
2010 China floods
The 2010 China floods began in early May 2010.. Three hundred and ninety-two people died, and a further 232 people were reported missing as of June 30, 2010, including 57 people in a landslide in Guizhou. Fifty-three of the deaths occurred from t ...
. The mudslides killed more than 1,471 people , while 1,243 others have been rescued and 294 remain missing.
The missing were presumed dead as officials ordered locals to stop searching for survivors or bodies to prevent the spread of disease.
Over 1,700 people evacuated have been living in schools.
Cause
Zhugqu County
Zhouqu County (; ) is a county in the eastern extremity of the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in the south of Gansu Province, the People's Republic of China, with the Bailong River flowing through its confines; it borders Sichuan province to ...
was the worst hit location, where mud submerged houses and tore multi-story blocks of flats to pieces. The seat of Zhouqu County was densely populated, with 50,000 people (42,000 of them are permanent population) in an area of . After the heavy rain, there was a buildup of water behind a dam of debris blocking a small river to the north of the city of Zhugqu; when the dam broke, around of mud and rocks swept through the town, in a surge reported as up to five stories high, covering more than 300 low-rise homes and burying at least one village entirely. The mudslide left an area long by wide in average leveled by mud with average thickness of .
According to Gyurme Dorje's ''Tibet Handbook'', the forest region of Zhugqu has, since the 1950s, "shrunk by 30% and the reserve of timber reduced by 25% due to overfelling. The sand in the river water has increased by 60%, and the water volume has reduced by 8%, resulting in increased flooding and drought." Furthermore, in this county there were between 47 and 53 hydroelectric construction projects in recent years, with 41 completed and 12 approaching deadline, according to government data. These together have caused 749,000 tons of water and soil erosion and over 3,000,000 cubic meters of bulldozed material. In 2006, a
Lanzhou University
Lanzhou University () is a major research university in Lanzhou, Gansu, China. Founded in 1909, it is one of the key universities under China's Ministry of Education (Double First Class University Plan, former Project 985 and Project 211). It ...
report concluded that these projects have made the whole area a volatile danger-zone. ''
The Christian Science Monitor
''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...
'' reported that two science researchers had predicted the mudslides in 1997.
The ''
People's Daily
The ''People's Daily'' () is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The newspaper provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the CCP. In addition to its main Chinese-language ...
'' has argued that the mudslide was due to a "perfect storm" of natural events, including "soft" "weathered" rock, heavy rainfall, drought, and the
Sichuan earthquake two years before. Authorities dismissed claims that the mudslides were "man-made".
Relief
The Gansu province has received 120,000,000
Chinese yuan
The renminbi (; symbol: ¥; ISO code: CNY; abbreviation: RMB) is the official currency of the People's Republic of China and one of the world's most traded currencies, ranking as the fifth most traded currency in the world as of April 202 ...
(US$17,000,700 ) by 13 August.
Hong Kong and
Macau
Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...
both donated millions of dollars to Gansu, with Macau donating more than US$7 million, and the United States donated $50,000 to Zhugqu County.
Gyaincain Norbu
Chökyi Gyalpo, also referred to by his secular name Gyaincain Norbu or Gyaltsen Norbu (born 13 February 1990), is considered the 11th Panchen Lama by the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC). He is also the vice president of t ...
, China's
11th Panchen Lama choice, donated
¥50,000 to relief efforts and prayed for the victims.
Reaction
On 15 August, a
day of mourning
A national day of mourning is a day or days marked by mourning and memorial activities observed among the majority of a country's populace. They are designated by the national government. Such days include those marking the death or funeral of ...
was observed, with flags lowered to half-mast at government buildings within China and at embassies in foreign countries. Additionally, all public and online entertainment was suspended, and major newspapers and internet sites were
grayscale
In digital photography, computer-generated imagery, and colorimetry, a grayscale image is one in which the value of each pixel is a single sample representing only an ''amount'' of light; that is, it carries only intensity information. Graysca ...
d. At the
Expo 2010
Expo 2010, officially the Expo 2010 Shanghai China, was held on both banks of the Huangpu River in Shanghai, China, from 1 May to 31 October 2010. It was a major World Expo registered by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), in the t ...
in Shanghai, all activities were canceled. Such events are rare in China; only after an earlier
earthquake in 2010 and the
2008 Sichuan earthquake in recent years have such periods of mourning been observed.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:2010 Gansu Mudslide
Gansu Mudslide, 2010
Disasters in Gansu
Gansu mudslide 2010
Zhugqu County
Gansu mudslide
August 2010 events in China