Chinese local governments admit to major cover-up of 2012 flood deaths
Cities that administered devastated counties confirm local governments underreported numbers of dead or missing
Two municipal governments in northeastern China have admitted that counties under their jurisdiction had covered up dozens of deaths during a flood nearly five years ago, marking a rare official admission of cover-up since Beijing admitted coverup in the early days of the Sars epidemic in 2003.
Authorities of Liaoyang and Anshan, two prefectural level cities in Liaoning province, publicly admitted that the previously released death tolls were deliberately underreported, but did not provide updated numbers.
The Liaoyang municipal government said in a statement on Wednesday that an initial report by one of of its counties that there had been no casualties in a flood in August 2012 was not true and there had been a “concealment”. State-run China National Radio reported on March 28 that at least seven people died or went missing in Liaoyang during the flood.
The neighbouring Anshan government said in December 2016 that the initial report of five deaths in the same 2012 flood was an underestimation. But the Anshan government also did not give an updated toll. CNR reported on in December 2016 that at least 38 people died in the flood.
Covering up death tolls from natural or man-made disasters was a common practice in the early days of communist rule in the mainland, and to this day the actual toll of how many people starved to death in the 1959-1961 famine following the Great Leap Forward movement remains controversial.