Authorities still snowed under with winter weather problems
- Source: Global Times
- [22:31 January 12 2010]
- Comments
By Edward Mills
Last week Beijingers awoke to the heaviest snow in 59 years, and with temperatures far below zero, it wasn't going to disappear quickly on its own.
The snow caused mass cancellations of flights and closure of schools numbering in thousands.
Due to effective emergency management, however, the city is largely back to normal, despite the temperatures remaining around -10 C.
The city government mobilized 300,000 people to deal with the problem and deployed 7,000 tra¡ c police to help keep Beijing moving.
Volunteers were drafted in and collections of citizens with spades were a common sight. Just a week later and the streets are back largely to normal and it's not hard to see why. Analysis of emergency strategy should not just focus on tra¡ c management.
While efforts mentioned above have been admirable, there have been other side effects of the weather conditions that have not been dealt with quite as effectively.
Food supplies were disrupted; the typical journey time from farm to market over trebled due to snowy conditions.
This naturally had a significant knock-on effect reflected in our vegetable prices, which increased substantially.
Some vegetables were up to 30 percent more expensive than normal. The price of a kilo of potatoes leapt up to over 12 yuan ($1.76) in some areas, which is three times as expensive as the usual price.
Public transport was also strained, with commuters abandoning their cars for the subway.
This led to particularly uncomfortable conditions that perhaps could have been alleviated if subway services had been laid on.
Despite the obvious ill-effects, Beijing's emergency management has largely been effective, as the streets are nearly clear of snow and the city is back to business as usual.
Snow, of course, is not unusual in Beijing. Winter's first snowfall arrived back in early November, when Chinese meteorologists seeded clouds with silver iodide to ease the drought.
The snowfall in Beijing this time around is the worst since 1951, according to the National Meteorological Centre, but it would seem adequate measures were in place to deal with such harsh conditions.
This is a marked contrast to other nations in the Northern hemisphere, who have been caught completely off-guard by such weather.
The UK in particular illustrates what can go wrong without adequate, rapid emergency management.
The temperatures may be less severe, but the snow is causing havoc and unlike China, the British government seems to be totally unprepared for such weather.
In fairness, the snow is covering a much larger proportion of the nation, but the response has still been inadequate.
Reports from British media suggest that some local councils came as close to 24 hours away from running out of salt, grit, whilst the snow could cost business up to 14 billion pounds.
Food has swiftly disappeared from supermarket shelves as residents concerned about the inadequate governmental measures have been panic-buying key provisions. Even those supermarkets that have managed to restock to remain low on supplies.
Some people did not manage to make it out of their homes at all, especially those in rural areas who still are unable to journey out days after the main snowfall has concluded, due to thoroughly inept planning by both regional and national governments. More than 3 million people missed work at the high point of snowfall.
Recent predictions suggest that the bad weather there is to return this weekend, so poor provisions will put further strains on business and personal lives.
It seems that the country will have to consider a massive overhaul of current procedure if it is to cope with such weather in the future. China can learn lessons from such disastrous management.
Beijingers can take comfort from the fact that despite the earlier snow, the city pulled through without experiencing critical difficulties.
The author is a Beijing-based British freelancer who spends most of his time immersed in current affairs. ed_greek@ hotmail.co.uk
