Flooding disaster in China is censored by state

After the worst rainstorm and floods strike Beijing in six decades, Chinese officials are accused of censoring the devastation and actual death toll.

27 July 2012, 12:00am

1 min read

A snapshot taken from Chinese state-media of the floods in Beijing's semi-mountainous areas

Chinese officials in Beijing have been accused of stifling the severity of the worst rainstorm and floods to hit the capital in 60 years.

Since the deluge and flash flooding which occurred on Saturday, the death toll has been raised by government authorities from 37 to 77 people.

Despite the increase in the number of dead, China’s state-controlled media continued to broadcast positive news related to the relief effort while negative postings online were deleted by censors.

Eight pages of flood reporting were removed by censors from Southern Weekend, a weekly newspaper based in South China, pushing its journalists to complain in micro blog posts which have since been deleted.

Around $1.6 billion in damages was caused by the disaster which affected 1.9 million people according to state-run Xinhua News Agency and the worst hit was mostly the rural Fangshan district in southwest Beijing where 38 people were killed.

However, Fangshan residents compiled their own death toll online and calculated that the number actually exceeds 300.