In 1975, Chairman Mao's health was deteriorating. Even so, Chairman Mao still insisted on working in bed every day. , a man who has struggled for the country and the people all his life, is still thinking about the people far away in Zhumadian, Henan. This year, a severe flood occurred in Zhumadian, Henan Province, and dozens of reservoirs collapsed one after another. At this time, Chairman Mao's actions were very difficult, but he still thought of the people affected by the disaster in Henan.
Chairman Mao asked his staff to report the situation to him every day. This time, the number of victims of the flood in Henan exceeded 26,000, and the number of people affected by the flood exceeded 10 million. When the People's Liberation Army found the bodies of dozens of people lying in the water during a disaster relief operation, Chairman Mao shed tears sadly after hearing the news.
The Huaihe River War
There is a very ancient myth in China Dayu's water control . Dayu's spirit of water control has influenced generations of Chinese people to never bow their heads in the face of nature. Since there are many rivers in China, flooding has been a headache since ancient times.
In the summer of 1949, severe floods occurred in the Huaihe River basin. In 1950, the Huaihe River flooded again, and this flood was also called a once-in-a-century flood. This time, the affected population reached 9.9 million, and 27 counties and cities in the Huaihe River Basin were affected.
The affected area along the coast reached 31,000 acres, hundreds of people died, and more than 800,000 houses were destroyed.. In order to make the people in the Huaihe River Basin feel more secure, the central government demanded that the Huaihe River must be repaired.
From 1951 to the end of the 1950s, the water control project of the Huaihe River has always been a top priority. A large number of reservoir projects were built in the Huaihe River Basin. By the early 1960s, nine large reservoirs had been built in the Huaihe River Basin, as well as countless reservoirs of various sizes. At that time, some people called this situation "full of stars."
At that time, these reservoirs did play a certain role in the flooding of the Huaihe River. However, due to lack of experience and a few officials who were fooled, many counties and cities only focused on quantity when building dams, not on quality. Many dams that have been built have developed cracks or various quality problems within a few years of use.
uses a popular word to describe many of these dams as "scumbag" projects. Seeing that there are problems with the construction quality of the dams, began to reinforce the dams in the mid-to-late 1950s, and some dams are still under construction. There was a problem with the overall thinking during the design and construction process.
Wrong ideas lay hidden dangers
The vigorous battle to control the Huaihe River caused dams to rise one after another. However, at that time there was neither acceptance work nor unified standards for water conservancy, so each county could only build according to its own conditions. This As a result, the quality of dams varies. This is not the biggest safety hazard. In some places, the overall thinking when building dams is wrong.
If building dams is a tactic, then the overall idea of governing the Huaihe River should be a strategy. Tactics can only be useful under a grand strategy, , but in some places the entire strategy has already gone wrong, and the battle to control Huai is heading in the wrong direction.
At that time, there were very few hydrological data and historical data for reference. Therefore, many people crossed the river by feeling for the stones, which tested people's experience and judgment. In 1958, Henan made great efforts to control the hydration of the Jian River Basin. At that time, a 16-character policy was proposed: focusing on storage, focusing on small-scale, and mainly self-operated by communes and teams.
In fact, most flood control measures combine dredging and water storage. From the 16-character policy proposed by Henan, we can see that had already made mistakes in the overall direction at that time. A water conservancy engineer proposed this to relevant personnel. idea.
Engineers believe that Henan is a plain area. If we only focus on water storage without dredging, it will lead to too much water on the surface and in the ground.. However, the engineer's suggestion was not adopted. The most critical problem is that this wrong idea has been widely promoted.
When dams were built in Henan, they were all small dams, and they were mainly built by commune teams themselves. In the era of "big pot rice", few people were responsible for quality, which laid hidden dangers for the subsequent flood in 1975.
Henan Floods
The ten-year flood control campaign was indeed very effective. However, no one expected that in 1975, there would be a rare heavy rain. 1htmlOn July 31, 1975, Typhoon No. 3 traveled over the Pacific Ocean and entered Zhumadian.
However, before the typhoon landed in Zhumadian, heavy rains had already fallen in some places, including Zhumadian, for several days. Many people still remember the heavy rains in Zhengzhou in the summer of 2021. Many areas, including Zhengzhou and surrounding provinces and cities, were flooded. In the heavy rainstorm in Henan in 1975, the maximum rainfall reached 1631mm.
This heavy rain began on August 4 and lasted until August 8. The five-day continuous heavy rain caused water levels to skyrocket in many places in Henan.. The first danger began to appear as early as the early morning of August 5.
Banqiao Reservoir was already facing the risk of embankment collapse. Because did not establish a sound emergency management system at the time, the situation on site was not known to superiors in time.. As the rainfall gradually increases, Banqiao Reservoir has begun to burst its banks.
Finally, in the early morning of August 8, the Banqiao Reservoir could no longer support it. The flood roared like tens of millions of wild beasts and broke through the dam. Humanity once again witnessed the anger of nature. The embankment burst occurred in the early morning, so a county downstream of the reservoir instantly turned into a swamp, and many people never woke up from their sleep.
However, no one thought that this was just the beginning, and with the bursting of Banqiao Reservoir, more and more reservoirs began to burst. The second dam to burst was the Shimantan Reservoir. The Xianggang Reservoir located downstream of the Shimantan also burst. At this time, multiple dams in the Zhumadian area also burst.
There are two reservoirs in the Zhumadian area, one is called Hewa Reservoir and the other is called Laowangpo Reservoir. The combined flood storage capacity of these two reservoirs is about 900 million cubic meters. Later, according to statistics, the actual storage capacity of the two reservoirs has exceeded 12 trillion cubic meters. Finally, these two reservoirs also burst their banks. In this heavy rainfall, more than 60 reservoirs in Henan were washed away.
This flood in Henan caused the affected area to exceed more than 10,000 square kilometers, and a total of 6 billion cubic meters of floods turned some areas into a vast ocean . Faced with such a major disaster, they naturally did not bother to hold local officials responsible and their original ideas for regulating the Huaihe River. They only knew that saving the lives of the people was the top priority at this time.
Flood fighting and disaster relief
The Chinese people have always had the advantage that when one side is in trouble, all parties support it. In the face of such a huge disaster, all provinces have put forward the slogan: Prioritize ensuring the food of Henan compatriots. A major disaster must be followed by a major epidemic. Since it is midsummer, many corpses soaked in water will inevitably cause large-scale infectious diseases.
In addition to supporting various disaster relief and flood control materials to Henan, many emergency medicines and medical supplies urgently needed by people in the disaster areas are also flying to Henan like snowflakes. The conditions at that time were far less advanced than they are now. According to some people's memories, the roads leading into Zhumadian and other major disaster areas had been flooded. Therefore, military aircraft could only be dispatched to deliver supplies to the disaster areas.
The heavy rain did not stop, so a scene like this happened in Henan. Many people braved the heavy rain to fight floods and provide disaster relief, while on the other hand, urgently needed supplies from all over the country poured into Henan. This heavy rain lasted for several weeks. After the heavy rain, not only personnel but also silt cleaning and river dredging had to be carried out.
The communication methods in 1975 were far less advanced than today, and Henan became an isolated island for a time. Some people recalled that because it was summer, many people escaped the floods by luck, but they suffered from physical problems after being soaked in the water for too long. The rotting corpses of people and animals attract flies, so many of these creations can even bend tree branches in flood waters.
According to last statistics, this flood caused the death of 26,000 people in the local area, countless farms were washed away, and nearly 100 million victims were affected. suffered such a serious injury, which still makes people sad to this day. Not only are people across the country concerned about Henan, but the central government and organizations are also very concerned about the people in the disaster-stricken areas of Henan.
This has also become an eternal pain in Chairman Mao’s heart. Chairman Mao, who had been fighting for the independence of the Chinese people all his life, had entered an old age in 1975. At this time, the chairman's body was not as strong as before, and he could only spend most of his time in bed and his bedroom. .
At that time, the chairman heard that there was a huge flood in Henan and the casualties were heavy. After that, he planned to go to the disaster area in Henan to have a look. However, took into account the physical condition of the chairman at that time and the organization did not allow it. So Chairman Mao asked the staff to report to him the situation in the disaster area every day.
The staff did not dare to hide it. They would give detailed reports to the chairman on the number of casualties and the situation in the disaster area every day. The chairman was in a bad mood for several days. Until one day, after listening to a set of numbers, the chairman couldn't control his emotions and shed sad tears.
It turned out that the People's Liberation Army who were rescuing on this day found dozens of corpses of people affected by the disaster when they arrived at a disaster site to drain water and clear the river mud. It was this incident that made Chairman Mao no longer able to suppress his emotions. This man who had never been afraid of the enemy's white terror during the war years shed tears for the people he loved deeply.
summary
The Chinese nation has often faced disasters in history, but the Chinese nation will always learn lessons from disasters. The severe floods in Henan not only made Henan completely realize that the previous ideas for river management were completely wrong, but also realized that emergency response and weather forecasting were not perfect in the face of major disasters.
After the flood, China launched a series of drills to deal with natural disasters. At the same time, it also gradually began to improve the emergency rescue management system. The Chinese people have also become more united in each disaster. Since then, the Chinese people have experienced the catastrophic floods in 1998, and the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. ... The country thrives through adversities. Disasters one after another have made the Chinese people more tenacious and united.
