Introduction to the 2008 Snow Disaster in China

Since January 3, 2008, large-scale natural disasters such as low temperatures, rain, snow, and ice have occurred in China. China's 20 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Xinjiang are all different The degree is affected by low temperature, rain, snow, and freezing disasters.

As of February 24, 2008, 129 people died due to the disaster, 4 people were missing, and 1.66 million people were urgently relocated; the affected area of ??crops was 178 million acres, 87.64 million acres were affected by disasters, and 25.36 million acres were harvested without crops; 485,000 houses collapsed and 1.686 million houses were damaged; direct economic losses due to the disaster were 151.65 billion yuan.

The forest area was nearly 279 million acres, and 30,000 nationally protected wild animals froze to death or suffered frostbite in the snow disaster; the number of people affected by the disaster has exceeded 100 million. Among them, seven provinces including Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guangxi, Sichuan and Guizhou were the most severely affected.

Experts from China’s National Meteorological Department pointed out that this large-scale rain and snow process should be attributed to atmospheric circulation anomalies related to the La Ni?a (Anti-El Nino) phenomenon: the long-term meridional distribution of circulation since January The cold air activities are frequent, and the subtropical high pressure is strong and the southern branch trough is active. The warm and humid air originating from the south and the cold air from the north meet in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, forming intense precipitation. The stability of the atmospheric circulation allowed the rain and snow to continue, eventually leading to this snow disaster.

Extended information:

The melted snow flowed into the ocean, and disasters were also reported outside the land. Starting from February 8 (the second day of the Lunar New Year), reports of large numbers of fish dying suddenly occurred in the Penghu Islands in the Taiwan Strait. A total of 58 families and 183 species of fish were affected, including many new species. There were about 1,500 tons of dead farmed fish, and the loss was about NT$180 million. According to inspections by marine experts, fish carcasses piled up like hills along the coast, and fish carcasses were also scattered on the seabed. "All invertebrates in the sea within 20 meters of water depth will not be spared." In addition, fish farmers in Guangdong Province and Hong Kong have also been affected by the cooling of sea water, causing a large number of farmed fish to die.

Baidu Encyclopedia 2008 Snow Disaster in China