Action by Churches Together (ACT)
Appeal - China
Flood Relief in Guangxi Province -  ASCN12
Appeal Target: US$ 139,306
Balance requested from ACT Network: US$ 114,306
Geneva, August 28, 2001


Due to the effect of typhoons Liulian and Youte, large parts of Guangdong,
Guangxi, Guizhou and Yunnan Provinces in China were severely hit by
continuous violent torrential rains from 1 to 4 July 2001, Guangxi Zhuang
Autonomous Region being the most seriously affected.  On 8 July, the
embankment of the Yue river - which is one of the major rivers that runs
across Guangxi - was cut apart for about 20 meters. Flood water in the
river dashed out to form a sea of water, inundating highways, railways,
and a city nearby. Yong river - which is another major river that runs
across Nanning, the capital city of Guangxi - had its water 5 meters above
the safety level for about a week, and was 6 to 8 meters higher than the
roads and streets outside its embankment.

Flooding is now over, and so is the water logging in most of the affected
areas in mountain. However, its impact on human life and property is far
from being over. According to the official reports nine persons were
killed, the affected population is more than ten million, 621,000 hectares
of crops are affected and 49,800 units of houses are destroyed.

ACT Member, The Amity Foundation, proposes relief assistance to help meet
the basic needs of the 2,501 families that have suffered serious loss of
property, houses, and farm crops in Rongsang and Naman Townships - which
are among the worst hit townships - as follows:

   Food assistance: Rice for two months
   Non food assistance: quilts and mosquito nets
   Housing for 68 families

Project Completion Date: 30 June, 2002


Summary of Appeal Targets, Pledges/Contributions Received and Balance
Requested
                                         US$
Total Appeal Target(s)                139,306
Less: Pledges/Contr. Recd.             25,000
Balance Requested from ACT Network    114,306

Ms. Genevieve Jacques		Thor-Arne Prois		Rev. Rudolf Hinz
Director			ACT Coordinator		Director
WCC/Cluster on Relations				LWF/World Service



REQUESTING ACT MEMBER

Amity Foundation


IMPLEMENTING ACT MEMBER & PARTNER INFORMATION

The Amity Foundation is a church related relief and development
organisation aiming at promoting health, education, social services
projects. It also aims at emergency relief and rehabilitation programs in
time of disasters. Amity is legally registered as a non-profitable
organisation. It has been serving society and the people in China for the
last 16 years.

Amity has been engaged in relief work for the past 15 years. It has
established a nation wide relief network through its local partners and
local churches. It handles 3 to 4 emergencies in a year. In major
disasters, it starts with emergency assistance for 2 or 4 months followed
by rehabilitation programs for a period of 1 or 2 years. When there is a
need, and when resources are available, it also implements disaster
mitigation and disaster prevention programs in an attempt to prevent or
reduce the destruction of disasters and to help promote sustainable
development of the target communities. Amity does its work in close
collaboration with its local partners.

Amity will implement its relief programs in close collaboration with
Overseas Friendship Association. Overseas Friendship Association is a
people's organisation strongly supported by the Chinese government. It
aims at promoting friendship and co-operation between Chinese people and
people overseas.

Overseas Friendship Association has been a close partner of Amity in the
fields of relief, rural development and back to school project for the
past 10 years. In 1991, when Guangxi was hit by a serious flood, it worked
with Amity in close partnership for emergency assistance and
rehabilitation in many counties in Guangxi Autonomous Region. Over the
years, it has gained itself many experiences in relief and development
work.

Amity will also work in close collaboration with the local governments.
The county government is to provide the office for the staff from the
Overseas Friendship Association who will work for Amity's project. It will
provide salaries and communication facilities for these staff as well. And
it will offer vehicles for project staff to travel to target areas. For
rebuilding of civilian houses, the county government is to contribute one
third of the project fund. It shares duties, responsibilities and risks
together with Amity and the association and it co-ordinates related
government departments, townships and villages to see to it that the
association can carry out their work smoothly.


DESCRIPTION OF EMERGENCY SITUATION

Background Information

Due to the effect of typhoons named Liulian and Youte, large parts of
Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou and Yunnan provinces were severely hit by
continuous violent torrential rains from 1 to 4 July 2001. Being located
in low-lying areas, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is the most seriously
affected. Besides large numbers of mud and land-slides, torrents of water
from Guizhou and Yunnan rushed into Guangxi to join the wild floods and
forming serious water logging. As a result, large areas have been covered
in flooding waters. Meanwhile, water in lakes and rivers rose rapidly
above the safety levels, or overflowed the embankments flooding the roads
and fields.

On 8 July, the embankment of the Yue river - which is one of the major
rivers that runs across Guangxi - was broken apart for about 20 meters.
Water from the river flowed out and formed a sea of water. Highways,
railways, and a city nearby were flooded all at once. 200,000 people
including thousands of army men were sent in an attempt to block up the
break. Meanwhile, the water in the Yong river - which is another major
river that runs across Nanning, the capital city of Guangxi - remained 5
meters above the safety level for about a week. Outside its embankment,the
level of water is 6 to 8 meters higher than the roads and streets. Another
200,000 people including 17,000 army men were mobilised to heighten and
protect the Yong river embankment vital to the capital city of Guangxi.
The army men and the civilian people remained on the embankment for
another 8 days to watch for and to fight against possible potential
dangers.


Current Situation

Now the flooding is over, and so is the water logging in most of the
affected areas in mountains. However, its impact on human life and
property is far from being over. (See Annex - Baise People after Flooding
- for detailed information about the current situation of the many of the
affected victims).


Impact On Human Lives

The rainstorms and ensuing water logging are said to be the most serious
since 1968. They have caused a great impact on human life and property.
This is particularly the case for the victimised mountaineers. With the
serious water logging rapidly formed in the mountains, many mountaineers
had to evacuate from their houses in a rush. They hardly had time to take
things with them. Now many of them do not have proper shelter, they have
no food rice, and they need quilts, blankets, mosquito nets and other life
necessities. In the meantime, mud and land-slides have damaged many parts
of roads in the mountains and smooth terrain areas. Many of them are yet
to be repaired or reconstructed.

As far as long term is concerned, the affected mountaineers are
confronting huge problems. Most of the food crops, which were about to be
harvested in the summer, have been lost through the flooding. The affected
victims will be in short supply of food rice for 4 months in the latter
half of the year. On the other hand, the areas downstream of the Guangdong
river, had also been hit by heavy rains. As a result the rainwater that
was being held up in Guangxi could not be drained in a very short period.
As the water logging continued, thousands of mud and wood houses either
collapsed or were seriously damaged, and all the furniture and properties
inside rotted. It is almost impossible for a poor family that lives in the
mountains to rebuild a new house and to recover everything without
external support.


Description of Damages

According to the official reports, in Guangxi alone, by 5 July:

People killed: 9
People affected: 10.283 million
People seriously affected: 6.348 million
People besieged: 271,000
People evacuated: 240,000
People turned homeless: 28,000
Houses destroyed: 49,800 room units
Houses seriously damaged: 106,000 room units
Farm crops affected: 621,000 hectares
Farm crops completely lost to the flooding: 87,200 hectares
Farmland destroyed: 15,100 hectares
Small reservoirs destroyed or damaged: 26
Hydraulic stations destroyed: 5
Pumping stations destroyed or damaged: 1,539
Water transfer channels: 2,689 kilometres
Highway base destroyed or damaged: 1,534,344 m3 (2,470 kilometres)
Highway and roads surface destroyed or damaged: 3,859 kilometres
Bridges destroyed or damaged: 42
School buildings collapsed or damaged: 1,057 room units

The direct economic loss is as high as 2.383 billion yuan (about
USD288,498).



Locations For Proposed Response

Rongsang and Naman Townships, which are among the worst hit townships in
Baise Prefecture, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, are intended to be the
target areas.

Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region is one of the 10 poorest western
provinces and autonomous regions in China. They are mostly inhabited with
Zhuang minorities.

Rongsang and Naman are among the poorest mountainous townships in Guangxi.
The average annual net income per capita is around 600 yuan (about
USD72.60). Because of the flooding, houses of 580 families collapsed,
2,501 families including these 580 families were evacuated and suffered
serious loss of property, and the same 2,501 families have lost most of
their farm crops of a total of about 3,784 hectares.

The local government has allocated 40 kilograms of food rice to each of
the affected households in Rongsang and Naman Townships.


GOAL & OBJECTIVES

Goal: to help meet the basic needs of the 2,501 families that have
suffered serious loss of property, houses, and farm crops in Rongsang and
Naman Townships.

Objectives:

to provide 1 quilt to each of the 2,501 families
to provide 1 mosquito net to each of the 2,501 families
to provide 15 kilograms of food rice to each of the 8,753 individuals in
  the 2,501 families continuously for 2 months
to help rebuild a new house for 68 families from among the 580 families
  that have suffered destruction of houses.






TARGETED BENEFICIARIES

Number and Type Of Targeted Beneficiaries

All 8,753 victims in 2,501 mountainous rural families (in Rongsang and
Naman Townships) that have suffered serious loss of property, houses and
farm crops are our targeted beneficiaries.


Criteria Utilized in Beneficiary Selection

Families whose houses and farm crops have been submerged in water and
thereby have suffered serious loss will each be assisted with a quilt and
a mosquito net.

All individuals in these families will each be assisted with 15 kilograms
of food rice each month continuously for 2 months.

All families - in 2 natural villages- that have suffered the most serious
damage of houses due to water logging, mud and land-slide will be helped
to rebuild a new house.


Target townships and villages will first work out a complete statistics
about the loss and the damage suffered by all individual families within
their townships and villages.  Then these statistics will be written down
on large pieces of paper to be posted on the outside wall of Village
Houses. By doing so, they are made known to all the villagers. Then Amity
staff and its local partners will make random visit to individuals and
families in these villages to see if things are in accordance with facts.
Corrections will be made in case of inconsistencies.



PROPOSED EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE & IMPLEMENTATION

Description of Assistance

Food rice: Food rice to be provided is locally produced. It is of ordinary
quality.

Quilts: Quilts to be provided are 1.5 meters wide and 2 meters long. The
cotton wadding is 3 kilograms heavy and made of pure cotton classified as
state level 3. The quilt cover is made from cotton cloth.

Mosquito nets: Mosquito nets to be provided are 1.5 meters wide, 2 meters
long, and are made of synthetic.

Houses: Houses to be built will occupy a floor space of about 80 to 100
square meters. They will be built with bricks and cement.



Implementation Description Per Activity

In order to ensure the quality and to cut down the prices, several
potential suppliers shall be invited to bid. Choice of suppliers shall be
made based on comparison between the quality, the price, the supply period
and the service they offer. Transportation of relief materials to target
townships, shall be conducted by the suppliers as part of their duties.
Township heads will then arrange to deliver relief materials from Township
Houses to Village Houses. The village heads will then arrange to
distribute relief materials to individual families within their villages
in close collaboration with Amity and the implementation group.

In order to make sure that only and all those who have suffered serious
loss of property, houses, and farm crops in targeted townships are
assisted, assistance criteria and beneficiaries selection criteria shall
be made public in all target villages before hand. Meanwhile, Amity Relief
Material Distribution Registers shall be prepared as well. On the
registers, the names of the heads of the households, the materials and the
number/amount of the materials they are each going to receive shall be
written. Before the target beneficiaries are granted relief materials,
they are required to write down their names and affix their seals. These
registers with names and affixes will again be made known to all villagers
for public surveillance.



ADMINISTRATION, FINANCE, MONITORING & REPORTING

Project Administration

Amity Foundation is the main operating body throughout the relief efforts.
It plays key roles in planning and managing the relief work. It supervises
and monitors during the whole operation process. And it works to ensure
that the relief funds are best used as is planned.

In order to implement effectively the relief work, a local implementation
group shall be set up. The branch head from the Overseas Friendship
Association of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region shall be the group
leader, representatives from Overseas Friendship Association at the county
level, relevant county departments, township departments, and related
villages are group members. The implementation group is to provide a
feedback on actual situation in the flood affected areas. And it works
with Amity to design relief work, and to procure and distribute relief
materials.


Project Finance Management and Controls

Amity Foundation is responsible for financial management. In order to make
sure that relief funds are all used for the target victims as is planned,
Amity and its local partner (Overseas Friendship Association) have agreed
that Overseas Friendship Association shall pay for the relief materials
first. They will be repaid later when the relief materials are distributed
and when the following receipts are received and when everything on the
receipts agrees to each other to support the total amount:

Purchase receipts (with tax bureau seals) provided by the suppliers who
clearly state the total amount/number, the unit cost and the total cost of
the bought materials.

Receipts provided by beneficiary townships which clearly state the total
amount/number of the relief materials they have received (with township
government seals)

Receipts provided by beneficiary villages which will clearly state the
total amount/number of the relief material they have received (with
village government seals).

Relief Material Distribution Registers with names of beneficiary families,
and number of family members on it.



Project Monitoring Procedures

Amity will collaborate with its local partners to participate in and to
monitor the overall process of Amity's relief work. Target townships and
villages are required to make public the beneficiary families, the
amount/number of relief materials. Ourselves and our local partners will
make field trips together in target townships and villages and visit
beneficiary families to see if everything is in agreement with facts and
if everything is in accordance with what has been planned and feedback.



IMPLEMENTATION TIMETABLE

The implementation period, which begins from appeal for emergency
assistance and ends in submission of audit report, is estimated to last
about ten months.

   20 August 2001 - 20 November 2001: appeal for emergency assistance
   28 August 2001 - 18 November 2001: implementation of material
      assistance
   October 2001 - June 2002: construction of new houses




CO-ORDINATION

The Department of Civil Affairs of Guangxi Autonomous Region is
responsible for the overall relief work within the autonomous region. It
maps out the overall disasters and needs in different prefectures and
allocates financial and in-kind support from outside the autonomous region
to different prefectures according to their needs. And it co-ordinates
different relief organisations for their relief activities to avoid
duplication of relief assistance in the same prefectures. The Civil
Affairs Bureaux at prefecture and county levels work following the same
pattern within their prefectures and counties to allocate financial and
in-kind assistance that reaches them to different counties and townships
to avoid duplication of relief activities.

Amity co-ordinates these civil affairs departments and its local partners
for its relief work there.


BUDGET

Description	Type of 	No. of	Unit	Budget	Budget
	Unit	Units	Cost	RMB	USD
			RMB

INCOME

Church World Service, USA					25,000


EXPENDITURES

Food Inputs
Rice	Kg	262,590	2	498,921	60,366
Non-Food Inputs
Cotton quilts	Piece	2,501	82	205,082	24,813
Mosquito nets	Piece	2,501	40	100,040	12,104
Civilian houses	House	68	4,000	   272,000	  32,910
Sub Total				1,076,043	130,193

Administrative fee (staff salaries,	Lump sum	75,323	9,113
 office maintenance & supplies, etc.)


TOTAL EXPENDITURES				1,151,366	139,306

BALANCE REQUESTED FROM ACT NETWORK				114,306


Annex to Appeal ASCN12

Baise People after the Floods
By the Amity Foundation


"Where was your house?" one of us asked a middle aged Zhuang woman in
front of a small hut made from striped plastic sheeting, which sheltered
her family from the heavy rain. She turned round not wanting the visitors
to see her face, but then she burst into tears, turned back, pointing at a
pile of debris, and said, "It was there. We've lost everything*" She was
sobbing so hard she could not continue the conversation and had to be
comforted by others.

Indeed, inside the hut, there was very little, and everything looked old,
muddy and wet. A few planks were put on a bed frame, covered with a straw
mat and topped by a mosquito net. The woman, her aged mother-in-law and
two young children slept on this bed at night. A wok was sitting on a
small stove; some bowls and washbowls were put on the mud ground near the
stove. In one corner was a pile of corn, separated from the ground by some
plastic sheeting; the corn was rather dark in color, the color of mould.
The ground was wet; the rainwater drips down from the top where the
plastic sheets join; it then flew outside from the center of the hut by a
sewer dug out with a spade.

Over the two days I spent in Baise, I visited many rural communities (in
Debao County, Tianyang County and Baise's suburbs) and met many villagers
like this woman, most of them Zhuang minorities, with little food left,
and now living in makeshift huts, school classrooms or in severely damaged
houses. When I asked them about their food, housing, schooling or
healthcare, I saw many women in tears and old men looking off into
oblivion, with pipes in hand.

This was Baise after the unprecedented floods beginning on July 4.
Altogether, 155,800 room units collapsed, and 723,300 hectares of crops
were flooded. With the help of the Church World Service, USA, Amity is
supplying 2,000 quilts and 2,000 cotton blankets to people from two of the
most severely damaged villages in Debao and Tianyang Counties, and the
project will be completed in a month.

On the walls of brick houses that were still standing, I could still see
the watermarks and sometimes dried grass that had once floated on waters.
Some of these houses had once been entirely under water; I could see the
dried grass on their roofs. In the fields, withered corn stalks and banana
trees stuck out of a thick layer of sludge brought up by the floods. As
one waded through, sometimes the sludge reached the knees. Some rice
paddies had no sludge; there, however, we had to walk through the stench
of the rotten rice seedlings. Many villages had lost all their summer
crops; they would harvest the corn in about a month when the floods came.

At the time of pain, loss, and frustration, I could also see hope, care
and love of life. I saw people feeding newly hatched chucks and ducklings.
I saw people whose brick houses had withstood the waters quietly dug up
the sludge from inside the house and clean up their living space inch by
inch. Villagers learned that the sludge carried a lot of germs and should
be removed whenever they could spare the time. To improve the sanitary
conditions, the village committee sent out people who sifted lime powder
on the ground of each household. In small patches next to collapsed
houses, rice seedlings had sprouted, banana seedlings growing in little
pots that were neatly lined up. As soon as the rain stopped, the sludge
cleaned up, I was told, the villagers will plant these seedlings in order
to get some grain and income by the end of the year.

"We could see the real beauty of humanity," said many people when they
were telling us what happened when the floods came. The Baise area is
mostly made up of stone mountains, with the You River winding through from
the middle. The area, together with Yunnan and Guizhou Provinces, was
caught in heavy torrential rains for almost 24 hours on July 3rd. The next
morning the sun came out, blazing, and people were sunning their clothes
and grain and were draining water from their fields. However, at noontime,
word suddenly came from the government that an onrush was descending from
the upper rivers and all villagers must evacuate immediately. Village
leaders were given orders that no human life be lost. At this time, people
could hear the thunderous roaring of the You River, and in many places the
water had overflowed the banks. The villagers told their children to run
for their lives, as they themselves helped elderly neighbors wade through
the waters. The flood peak raised the water level by over 10 meters.

Zhong Chengfeng, an 18-year-old Zhuang boy from Dacheng Village, happened
to be punting a small wooden boat. His mother asked him to go back to
their house to get some grain, but instead he made many trips back to the
village and picked up many of his neighbors who were squatting on roofs or
holding trees or simply struggling in swift water currents. He took them
to safety, but finally, in the riptides, his boat crashed into a cement
power pole and broke into pieces, so he himself had to swim to join
others.


When I saw this brave young man, he was sheltering himself from the rain
in his hut, also made from a few bamboo poles and striped plastic sheets,
all these supplied by the county government. He and his younger brother
only had a makeshift bed, a mosquito net, and a few junior middle school
textbooks that belonged to the brother.

"How many people have you saved?" asked one of us.
"Oh, I did not count them. I guess many."
"You are very brave, indeed."
"No. Anyone else in my position would do the same," he said
   matter-of-factly.

By the afternoon of July 4th, the whole of Naman Township was under water
except for the township's junior middle school, where over 3,000 people
were gathered, taking up every inch of room space. These people were well
organized. Young men were sent out to look for missing neighbors and look
for food, fuel and woks. Women were counting neighbors in their villages.
When night fell, the aged, the sick and children were let to sleep under
the few mosquito nets. The rest only had enough floor space to sit and had
to withstand the mosquito bites.

In the early morning, some young men returned with cornmeal and bowls.
Women started to cook porridge. The 3,000 ate from a few woks, each with
only a small portion even though it had been more than 14 hours since they
ate anything at all.

For eight days, these 3,000 people lived on cornmeal porridge. They shared
their straw mats and took turns to sleep. They often had to share bowls
and chopsticks. There was very little food, but there was not even a
single quarrel.

"We Zhuang are a good people," summed up a village leader, "and we like to
help each other at critical moments. I should really thank my people for
what they did during those eight days before the floods subsided. It was
because of them that not a single life was lost in our township."

The water finally receded and people started to return to their villages,
only to find that all the houses made from wood or mud bricks were gone.
Neither could they find their buffaloes, pigs, chickens or other
possessions.

As I stepped on the houses completely flattened to the ground and on what
was once roofs, under the broken tiles, beams and mud walls, I could see
shoes, clothes, wardrobes, children's toys and even a bicycle, still
soaked in mud and waters. Some people were trying to uncover their
belongings. One young man was washing a small stone grinder that had just
been dug up. Not far away, I saw a threshing machine and a diesel engine,
just uncovered and looking still usable after some repair.

Life is continuing, but the Zhuang people are faced with great
difficulties. A large number of families have not harvested anything, and
the next crops will not be harvested until late November. The county
government has supplied each villager 15 kilos of cornmeal, which will
carry them through the month of July. The government would like to
continue to do this, but the two poorest counties, Debao and Tiandong,
have no reserve and already owe a great deal of money to the banks and the
governments higher up. They are unable to supply more relief grain.

Many people, especially those with some medical and public health
background, mentioned the problem of mosquitoes in the Baise Area. They
say that priority should be given to the supply of mosquito nets since
most of those homeless have lost them and have no cash to buy them even
though they only sell at 28 yuan apiece.

Houses should be built before the winter. Some people suggest that Amity
provide each household a grant of 2,000 yuan. Others suggest that Amity
help build a few homes for the aged so as to take care of the most
vulnerable of those who are currently homeless.

During each day's visits to Baise, I was alternately soaked by the rain
and scorched by the sun, the sweat leaving a thin layer of salt on my
T-shirt. In the evenings, I was totally exhausted after much wading and
mountain climbing. However, I always returned to a county guesthouse. When
there was power, my room had an air conditioner and a hot shower, and I
did not have to be bothered by mosquitoes. These simple comforts made me
feel even more strongly that we at Amity should do more for the Zhuang
people in Baise.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Action by Churches Together (ACT) is a worldwide alliance of churches and
their related agencies, meeting human need through co-ordinated emergency
response.  The ACT Coordinating Office is based with the World Council of
Churches (WCC) and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in Switzerland.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


   Ecumenical Centre                          Phone: ++41-22-791.60.33
   150, route de Ferney                         Fax: ++41-22-791.65.06
   P.O. Box 2100                             E-Mail: act@wcc-coe.org
   1211 Geneva 2                              Telex: 415 730 OIK CH
   Switzerland                                 http://www.act-intl.org


distributed by
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Center for International Disaster Information
Volunteers in Technical Assistance
                                          web: www.cidi.org
                                     listserv: www.cidi.org/listsub.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
comments/suggestions/requests to incident@cidi.org