Every year, China sees a huge loss of life and property due to widespread floods.

Last year, they left 1,343 people dead or missing and caused economic losses of 66.6 billion yuan (US$8.05 billion) nationwide. And that was a sharp decrease on previous years.

The worst floods of the past 50 years hit the country in 1998, killing 4,150 with direct economic losses of 255.1 billion yuan (US$30.8 billion).

Now, since this year's flood season has arrived in most parts of China, the country is bracing itself to deal with another watery onslaught.

So far floods and landslides sparked by torrential rain have killed more than 200 and left over 100 missing in 16 provinces and autonomous regions, with millions of people affected.

Statistics released by the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters on Tuesday suggested that water levels in the trunk streams of the country's seven major rivers were below the alarm mark.

Water levels exceeding the alarm mark occurred only in some branches of these rivers.

This situation, however, cannot allow us to relax in our preparations for flood control.

There have been signs the country faces a more complicated climate this year than most previous years and there could be worse floods than usual, Chinese meteorologists have warned.

Jiao Meiyan, director of the National Meteorological Centre under the Chinese Meteorological Administration, said on Tuesday that southern China, where most of the country's major rivers flow, entered the flood season in May, the earliest time in the past five years.

Most parts of southern China received rainfall about 40 to 70 per cent more than the average level in the last five years, and some even reported about 90 to 150 per cent more rain than before.

What's worse, in May the country also experienced more climate-related disasters, such as rainstorms, blizzards and thunderbolts, killing 255 people and leaving 34 missing.

In May, about 300 counties and cities across 20 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities were hit by rainstorms, and some were seriously pelted by hailstones.

Meanwhile, Chinese weathermen have forecast an even rainier season from mid-June on the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the country's longest river. This could cause more landslides and floods in flood-prone areas.

Given such a grave situation, work must be done nationwide in order to fight more devastating floods and climate-related disasters.

The focus should be on more than 30,000 old reservoirs which could be dangerous.

Built between the 1950s and 1970s, most of the reservoirs are in poor condition despite maintenance and reinforcement work carried out in the past few years.

Wang Shucheng, minister of water resources, has warned that the reservoirs also lack communication and monitoring equipment and suffer from poor management.

As a result, many of them still rely on old signal systems fires or guns to send warnings.

That's really worrying but may still not be the whole picture of the looming danger.

The potential threat is surely enough that the country must come up with more comprehensive and urgent anti-flood measures to minimize human casualties and property losses.

Source: China Daily