TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The massive floods which have ravaged China over the past two months have inflicted a heavy toll on the communist country in terms of damages to property and direct economic losses, with the vaunted Three Gorges Dam seemingly inadequate in reducing these effects and the death toll remaining suspiciously low.

After two months of torrential rains and tremendous flooding across the Yangtze River, Yellow River, and Huai River, China's state-run media mouthpiece Xinhua on Wednesday (July 29) cited the Ministry of Emergency Management as saying that the "rain-triggered floods" have affected 54.8 million people in 27 provincial-level regions as of Tuesday (July 28). Despite the vast scale of the disaster across China over two months, the government is reporting a miraculously low 158 dead or missing.

Xinhua says that 3.76 million people have been evacuated from flood-ravaged areas. Amid the onslaught, 41,000 homes have collapsed and 368,000 have been damaged.

A total of 5.283 hectares of farmland has been damaged and direct economic losses have climbed to 144.43 billion Chinese yuan (about 20.66 billion U.S. dollars). Compared with the average over the same period in the past five years, the number of people affected by floods this year has increased by 23.4 percent, the number of evacuations has increased by 36.7 percent, and direct economic losses have increased by 13.8%.

Suspiciously, the number of dead and missing persons has decreased by 53.9 percent and the number of collapsed houses has dropped by 68.4 percent. Given that this year's floods have not only surpassed anything seen in the past five years but also since 1998 and beyond, it is odd that the number of deaths and collapsed homes would actually decrease, possibly indicating undercounting by officials.

Although it is predicted that the heavy rainfall in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River will ease on Wednesday, the official Weibo page of China's Ministry of Emergency Management (MEM) stated that the government has decided to maintain the secondary flood control response on the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers as well as required key areas to the north so as to strengthen the implementation of flood prevention.

On Sunday (July 26), China's state-run mouthpiece Xinhua announced that the "No. 3 Flood" of the year had been declared for the embattled Three Gorges Dam that day. By 2 p.m., the dam's reservoir recorded an inflow of 50,000 cubic meters per second, and it is expected to peak at 60,000 cubic meters per second by Tuesday, according to China's Ministry of Water Resources.

By 8 a.m. on Tuesday, the flood passed through the Three Gorges Reservoir area and was advancing to the middle and lower reaches. The main channel of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River was still maintaining a high water level.

Although the water level of the main channel of the middle and upper reaches of the Huai River is slowly decreasing, it has exceeded the warning level for an extended period of time. As of Wednesday, the water level of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River below the city of Shishou in Hubei Province and the Poyang and Dongting Lakes continues to exceed the warning level.

It is expected that heavy rains and floods may occur in the Yellow River basin at any time after the rain belt moves north on Wednesday. According to The Beijing News, after the rain belt moves north on Wednesday, heavy rainfall will occur in the Huanghuai region, North China, and Northeast China, and heavy floods may occur in the Hai River, Yellow River, and Songliao rivers.

Coronavirus infections rose above 13 million across the world on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, climbing by one million in just five days in a pandemic that has killed more than half a million people.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there would be no return to the old normal for the foreseeable future, with too many countries headed in the wrong direction.

"The virus remains public enemy number one," he told a virtual briefing from WHO headquarters in Geneva.

"If basics are not followed, the only way this pandemic is going to go, it is going to get worse and worse and worse. But it does not have to be this way."

The Reuters global tally, which is based on government reports, shows the disease is accelerating the fastest in Latin America. The Americas account for more than half the world’s infections and half the deaths.

Parts of the world, especially the United States with more than 3.3 million confirmed cases, are still seeing huge increases in a first wave of COVID-19 infections, while others "flatten the curve" and ease lockdowns.

Some places, such as the Australian city of Melbourne and Leicester in England, are implementing a second round of shutdowns. Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, albeit with a low 1,522 cases, is to tighten social distancing measures again amid growing worries about a third wave.

The United States reported a daily global record of 69,070 new infections on July 10. In Brazil, 1.86 million people have tested positive, including President Jair Bolsonaro, and more than 72,000 people have died.

The US state of Florida reported a record increase of more than 15,000 new cases in 24 hours on Sunday, more than South Korea's total since the disease was first identified at the end of last year. Florida tallied 12,624 new cases on Monday.

Coronavirus infections were rising in about 40 US states, according to a Reuters analysis of cases for the past two weeks compared with the prior two weeks.

Yet US President Donald Trump and White House officials have repeatedly said the disease is under control and that schools must reopen in the autumn.

"The president and his administration are messing with the health of our children," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on CNN's "State of the Union" program.

"We all want our children to go back to school, parents do and children do. But they must go back safely."

Stay at home

Hungary has imposed new restrictions on cross-border travel as of next Wednesday in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus after a surge in new cases in several countries, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief of staff said on Sunday.

The leader of the Spanish region of Catalonia called on residents of an area that has seen a surge in coronavirus cases to stay at home despite a ruling by a judge who threw out a mandatory lockdown order for the district of 160,000 people.

Spain, which has been one of the European countries worst hit by the coronavirus, lifted nationwide confinement last month, when the pandemic seemed to have come under control.

Since the first cases were reported in China around the new year, it took three months to reach one million cases. It has taken just five days to climb to 13 million cases from 12 million recorded on July 8.

India, the country with the third-highest number of infections, has been contending with an average of 23,000 new infections each day since the beginning of July.

In countries with limited testing capacity, case numbers reflect only a smaller proportion of total infections. Experts say official data likely under-represents both infections and deaths.