Torrential rains and floods have hit many parts of China recently. Zhengzhou spent 2.5 billion yuan to tile the Jinshui River, but a landslide occurred only half a year after the renovation project was completed. Zhengzhou officials said the collapsed section was not within the scope of the renovation project and that the trail was damaged because of heavy rain. However, the official statement was unable to quell netizens' doubts about the quality of the project.
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Many parts of China have been hit by heavy rains recently. In addition to Dongting Lake, the Jinshui River in Zhengzhou, which collapsed only half a year after the renovation, has also become the focus of netizens. According to Chinese media Jimu News, after the heavy rain in Zhengzhou this week, a 5-meter-long and 4-meter-wide slope collapse occurred at the Jinshui River and Zijingshan Road, with a large amount of soil sliding down. It also quoted local residents as saying that although it rained heavily at the time of the incident, the water level did not rise to the collapse site.
Zhengzhou residents: The river is only beautiful but cannot drain water. People are angry but dare not speak out
Mr. Zheng, a resident of Zhengzhou, told our station that he has paid special attention to news related to drainage prevention and control since the 720 flood in Zhengzhou three years ago. He also visited the site after the Jinshui River was completed at the end of last year and felt that it was more of a vanity project than a practical one.
Mr. Zheng said: "Before the tiles were laid, the Jinshui River was a weed-covered river that looked like a stinking ditch. After the renovation, it looks beautiful on the surface, but only beautiful. The design does not have pipes to drain rainwater, and it does not play a role in flood control and drainage. As a result, every time there is a heavy rain, the road surface in the low-lying areas in eastern Zhengzhou is like a river."
Mr. Zheng said that after the news came out, local residents felt worried, and some were dissatisfied with the government's failure to fulfill its promise to spend tens of billions of dollars to build a sponge city, but they dared not speak out.
Mr. Zheng said: "After being banned from criticizing the central government, even criticizing the local government or offering opinions is dangerous. They don't solve the problems, but solve the people who raise them. There are many dissatisfied elderly people in the park. They can only use the past to criticize the present, saying how good the Mao Zedong era was, and dare not say that the present is bad. They are not allowed to speak online. In WeChat groups, if the speech is a little too much, the group will be closed. Some people are afraid of being blocked on WeChat, so they keep quiet. This is the current situation in society."
Netizens don't buy official explanation that collapsed slope protection is not within the scope of remediation
Zhengzhou City Urban Management Bureau explained on Wednesday (July 10) that the slope protection that collapsed due to heavy rainfall belongs to the subway protection area and is not within the scope of the Jinshui River comprehensive renovation project. Experts were sent to the scene immediately after the incident and believed that it was caused by long-term heavy rain. It also said that the 90 square meters of trails damaged by heavy rain had been promptly handled. After the official explanation of the incident, no reports of the collapse of the Jinshui River slope protection could be found on the Jimu News website, only the official version was retained. However, screenshots of the original report and related photos have been saved by netizens and forwarded on Weibo and other platforms. Bloggers do not accept the official statement and continue to question the quality of the project that cost 2.5 billion to renovate the river.
Blogger "40,000 km Crazy Brother" said: "Zhengzhou's Jinshui River renovation was once a hot topic because of the bricks paving the river. For a project with such a huge investment and so much attention from the people, there should be a clear indication of which areas are within its scope and which are not. It can't be that if nothing goes wrong, it is within its scope, but if something goes wrong, it is not within its scope."
Blogger "Mei Jie loves to talk" said: "You said that the quality of your project was up to standard, but within half a year, a landslide suddenly occurred. It was said to be a once-in-a-century event, but it happened within half a year. I wonder, after the completion of the project, didn't the professionals from the relevant departments conduct an acceptance inspection? So much money was spent, and now there are quality problems, so who is responsible?"
Blogger "Shidouge Shuoshier" said: "The water in the river didn't rise to the place where the landslide occurred. How did the slope collapse? How did the trail get damaged? Could it be that the people were too heavy and stepped on the slope to collapse? I can't help but ask, where did the 2.5 billion yuan go?"
Comment: The incident highlights the institutional problem that corruption is inevitable when huge sums of money are not regulated
Wang Jian, a current affairs commentator who has been following the incident, said that the incident reflects that under an authoritarian government, the government does not accept social supervision, and official infrastructure projects are not supervised. It is inevitable that corruption will affect the quality of the projects.
Wang Jian said: "It's either a quality problem or corruption. China's infrastructure investment is designed and calculated according to the highest standards, and then allocated according to the highest standards. Think about it, tens of billions or hundreds of billions of funds are not supervised, and no one cares. Maybe 20% to 30% of the project funds are used for the project, and most of them are embezzled. The result is that it collapses in less than a year. Floods are the best test. Let's see if it can withstand the impact. If it can't, it will be a shoddy project."
As for the fact that the netizens' criticism was not blocked by the authorities, Chinese independent commentator Ji Feng believes that this is because the incident does not involve the central government and is not politically sensitive. The Zhengzhou government can only block local speech and has no ability to deal with non-local accounts and speech.
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