After the flooding 

1) The history tells us that, there is always a great plague after a great hazard. As a hazard brings a large number of deaths, bodies may cause a growth of diseases. Secondly, flooding brings an environmental pollution to the drowned region, and so the risk of plague increases. Lastly, a hazard damages lots of buildings, including people's homes and medical facilities, and so the homeless refugees are not provided enough medical services.

2) During the flooding, many transport facilities such as railways and roads were damaged. Also, because ten thousands of rescue workers went to the affected regions, the need of transport increased a lot, during and after the flooding. China government repaired damaged railways and roads immediately. It then let the trains for rescue works to have a priority to use the railways. Planes, trains and trucks rushed to the affected regions. They carried rescue materials, and also textbooks and stationeries, to confirm that the students could start the new term in September on time.

3) As the government mobilized the most for rescue works, thefts then occurred when the society fell into disorder. During the flooding, some people ignored the safety of the dams and continued mining sands illegally. Also some thieves dredge up things in drowned areas. They robbed or stole the refugees' things when they left their homes. Also, rescue materials were robbed or stolen. China government strengthened the security work during and after the flood. It organized more policemen to prevent and investigate crimes.

4) Manufacturing industries in affected regions were terminated during the flooding. Immediately after the flooding, the need of rescue materials provided a large market for the factories. The China government formulated two main points: (1) preventing the flooding from re-occurrence to keep people's safety; and (2) exploiting the market to confirm agricultural, industrial and commercial developments. It also carried out infrastructure works to speed up the recovery of the society. We can see that the gross domestic product continued to rise by 7.8 %. Also, most of the other economic indices continued to rise. Thus I believe the China government's measures were successful.

(Wuhan City in 2002)

5) During the flooding, millions of people became homeless. To resettle the refugees was another difficult problem. The China government set ten thousands of tents; and let the refugees to stay in schools and government buildings. Other than places to live, the government also provided the refugees cash, food, clothes, quilts, medicines and so on. It later formulated some favourable policies to help the affected people to rebuild their houses. Its aim was to confirm that, the people could live in the winter with enough daily necessities.

6) The Changjiang has been severely flooded for 216 times since the first record in 127BC (Western Han Dynasty). Two of them occurred after 1949, one in 1954 and one in 1998. Aiming at tackling the long-lasting flooding problem in Changjiang, since 1993, the China government had started to carry out a large-scale multi-purpose water scheme as a long-term measure. This water scheme is known as the Three Gorges Dam Project (三峽工程), and is expected to be finished in 2009. The government built a dam at Sandouping (三斗坪) to control the water flow of Changjiang. I hope that the government's plan will be successful.