People In China Aghast Over Flooding Homes To Save Beijing

Nearly 1 million people in China's northern Hebei province were relocated which has sparked anger online over the homes sacrificed to save Beijing, reported Reuters.

“The vast Hai River basin covers an area the size of Poland that includes Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin. Over a span of one week from late July, the region with a population totalling 110 million experienced its most serious flooding in six decades, with Hebei, particularly Baoding prefecture, the worst hit,” the report said.

The report stating flood control laws said: “when basin-wide flooding causes reservoirs, the first line of defence, to exceed their limits, water may be temporarily channelled to so-called flood storage areas - including low-lying populated land.”

The report said on July 31, Hebei province opened seven of its 13 designated flood storage areas, including two in the city of Zhuozhou in Baoding south of Beijing and north of Xiongan, a zone President Xi Jinping aims to develop into an economic powerhouse serving Hebei, Beijing and Tianjin.

It also stated on August 1, Hebei's Communist Party Secretary Ni Yuefeng called Xiongan a top priority for the province's flood prevention work.

“On his visit to flood storage areas in Baoding, Ni added that it was necessary to reduce the pressure on Beijing's flood control and create a moat for the Chinese capital,” the report said.

"Beijing should foot the bill", wrote a netizen on the popular Chinese microblog Weibo, the report said.

“In other posts on Zhuozhou, netizens said residents weren't aware they lived in a flood storage area and the rights of the minority had been sacrificed,”the report said.

"I'd like to know, among all the people living in flood storage areas across the country, how many of them know they are living in such areas?" the report quoted one angry netizen as having stated.