Lesson Learned? Beijing Defends its Flood Numbers - Wall Street Journal (blog)

Reuters

A rescue boat approaches a partially submerged car on a flooded highway after heavy rainfalls hit Fangshan District in Beijing, July 22, 2012.

REUTERS

Residents of Wajing Village, in Beijing’s Fangshan district, sit amidst debris and damaged vehicles in the aftermath the weekend’s floods.

The city of Beijing shot back on Tuesday at skeptics who questioned the official death toll from floods that swamped the capital over the weekend, continuing an unusual effort to engage critics in the wake of one of the Chinese capital’s worst disasters in recent memory.

“We learned our lesson from SARS,” Beijing municipal government spokeswoman Wang Hui said during a meeting with reporters on Tuesday, referring to a major scandal in 2003 when city authorities were caught downplaying the scale of the SARS epidemic. “Everyone should know that we’ll speak the truth.”

According to a statement the government posted online late Sunday night, a total of 37 people had died in Saturday’s floods, the result of the heaviest rains the city has seen in more than 60 years.

Many have openly questioned that number, citing scenes of devastation in remote rural districts to the south and the Chinese government’s track record of trying to downplay disasters, for example during last year’s collision of high-speed trains near the city of Wenzhou.

But Ms. Wang, who has been active on social media and talking to reporters by phone since the disaster struck, insisted that the city was not trying to deceive the public. “Thirty-seven is real. Whether today it’s still 37, I don’t know, but I’m telling you, when â€" if â€" there’s a new confirmed number, we’ll definitely tell everyone,” she said.

It’s unusual for Chinese government officials to engage with the public and the media as much as Ms. Wang has in recent days. Indeed, the spokeswoman’s performance stands in marked contrast to that of former Ministry of Railways spokesman Wang Yongping, whose imperiousness in the face of reporters’ questions about the Wenzhou train crash almost exactly a year ago spawned an Internet meme and eventually led to his dismissal.

Ms. Wang described Tuesday’s meeting as an effort by the government to better understand what sorts of information journalists were interested in, stressing that it was not intended as a news conference.

Still, she did address some questions, including around the scale of the government’s rescue efforts, which had been criticized after media quoted residents in hard-hit southern districts complaining about lack of assistance from authorities.

The city had deployed 160,000 recue workers around the city, Ms. Wang said, though she said she didn’t know details. “I think it’s a time issue. Of course the government can’t be there in the first second after a disaster strikes, but eventually, 100%, they’ll get there,” she said.

She also told reporters that the government was serious about upgrading the city’s much-maligned sewers and drainage systems, but she declined to offer a timetable, saying the city’s energies were being devoted to the rescue effort for the time being.

Noting that she had barely slept in three days, Ms. Wang appeared to tear up at several points during the meeting.

Still, the weight of the tragedy didn’t keep her from resorting to a little light-hearted regional stereotyping in trying to explain why Beijing seemed caught off-guard by the weekend deluge while the southern city of Guangzhou appeared well prepared to deal with typhoon Vicente.

“Personally, I think northerners really don’t know how to deal with rain,” she said, insisting that the Beijing government had done what it was supposed to do in predicting and warning residents about the approaching storm. “So why are people still organizing activities? Why are they out playing soccer?”

â€" Josh Chin. Follow him on Twitter @joshchin

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