Dunhua Underwater: People in the North-East Face the Biggest Flood in Their Memory

Between 6:00 a.m. on 14 July and 6:00 a.m. on 15 July, within a single day, Dunhua, a county-level city on the banks of the Mudan River in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin Province, set a new local record for average 24-hour rainfall. Water levels in several local rivers continued to rise, and the flooding eventually spilled over. About one-third of the urban area was submerged, and multiple townships in the area were left underwater for days.

This was the result of the warm, moist airflow carried by Typhoon Bawi interacting with the upper-level westerly trough over the north-east of China and the subtropical high to the east.

Dunhua is in the upper reaches of the Mudan River; from here the river flows north-east into Heilongjiang Province. Basin-wide flooding further widened the affected area, and many townships in Heilongjiang carried out evacuations and flood relief.

In late July, Foodthink went to Dunhua to record the real experiences of this small city and its surrounding countryside during the floods. For many people in the north-east, this was the biggest flood in their memory. Houses were flooded, farmland was destroyed, and ginseng fields were submerged. For this land of black soil, the flood may have been only a beginning—the climate is changing, and the north-east is facing new challenges.

Floodwater Swept Into the City Centre,

Submerging the Market

Days of heavy rainfall turned into surging floodwaters. On 14 July, the main-channel water level of the Mudan River in Dunhua rose rapidly to 494.64 metres, approaching the guaranteed water level. That was already the maximum at which the levee system could operate safely by itself. At 8:00 p.m., Dunhua activated the Level 1 flood emergency response; at 9:00 p.m., the Dunhua municipal government issued an emergency evacuation advisory, warning that an exceptionally large flood peak would appear on the Mudan River main channel in the near future. The water finally overtopped the river embankment and flowed into the city centre.

Sister Juan, a dried-goods wholesaler, experienced this flood peak first-hand. On the afternoon of 14 July, the Kanghui Agricultural Produce Wholesale Market was already flooded to waist height.

The water surged again in the middle of the night. That evening, worried about damage to her stock, she did not evacuate with the others but stayed at the market to watch over her goods. In under half an hour, the water in her shop rose from knee height to chest height. She and her husband urgently moved their stock, placing lighter items—dried mushrooms, wood ear, and dried fish—on the corrugated iron shed on the roof, but the more expensive ginseng gift boxes could not be salvaged and were all swept away. It was not until a corner of the corrugated iron shed collapsed under the weight that they gave up trying to save any more.

When Sister Juan and her husband evacuated, the entire market was already completely submerged and in total disarray. The water was more than a metre deep, with all kinds of debris floating in it. Objects kept hitting Sister Juan in the chest, so she could barely walk. She had to lean on her husband, who was 1.8 metres tall, to be supported as they slowly made their way out of the market.

It rained for a day and a night, and that night it never stopped. By 6:00 a.m. on 15 July, the floodwater was 1.21 metres above the guaranteed water level, and water had accumulated in several residential estates, roads, and underground spaces in the city centre. The rain did not ease until 9:00 a.m., and the water level was still rising.

The Mudan River runs through Dunhua. This rain left large areas of the east bank of Dunhua flooded. A 16 July video posted by a Dunhua netizen showed large residential estates being inundated, making the city look as if it had been soaked in water. A local resident told Foodthink that at least about one-third of Dunhua city had suffered flood damage and waterlogging, and that in some low-lying areas the ground floor and first floor were both submerged.

The water stood for more than two full days and only began to recede on 16 July. On 17 July, Dunhua began full-scale flood drainage and silt clearing. Many streets were covered in a thick layer of silt, with lorries shuttling back and forth nonstop. Some residents were still stranded. Sister Juan’s cousin, with her child, was stranded on the third floor, cut off from water and electricity; it was not until the fourth day that a rescue team brought them down in kayaks. As of the afternoon of 20 July, many residents reported that their residential estates still had no electricity. Because water in the basements was difficult to pump out, they had to rely on generators at night.

On 20 July, when Foodthink entered the wholesale market, a foul smell hit them at once. The fishy stench of silt, the acid putrefaction left by meat and vegetables fermenting in the heat, and the smell of disinfectant mixed together, stinging their eyes. As far as the eye could see, silt covered the ground. On the left, thousands of submerged bottles of soy sauce lay at the shop doors, the bottles caked with yellow mud. Further on were the fish shops, with freezers piled in all directions. Various carts and rubbish trucks came and went nonstop. Hundreds of wholesale shop operators had lost their former vitality, engulfed in the stench.

A shop owner in the vegetable section told Foodthink that on 13 July he had just unloaded a lorry load of onions, and on 14 July water came in, destroying several tonnes of stock. He could not help saying, “If they had told me there would be a flood this big, I would not have placed that order.”

The flood also exceeded what Chen Yuan, an egg wholesaler, had expected. “In all these years, I have never seen water this high.” When he returned to the market, he found the water in his shop so deep that he could barely see, and that several hundred boxes of eggs, as well as gift boxes of medicine, had been soaked, causing losses of over 100,000 yuan.

The losses were not confined to the wholesale market owners; Dunhua’s food supply was also disrupted in the days that followed. A staff member at the wholesale market told Foodthink that the Kanghui Wholesale Market is the largest agricultural produce wholesale market in the area, and that more than half of Dunhua’s agricultural products are distributed from here. Because the volumes are large and the prices low, vegetable markets in several nearby county towns also come here to stock up. The shutdown prevented some traders from restocking, briefly affecting vegetable prices. Some prices rose, but overall they remained fairly stable. Major supermarkets have their own supply chains, and thanks to today’s well-developed logistics, prices did not fluctuate much.

A vegetable trader told Foodthink that they would normally stock local vegetables at this time of year, but this time many townships were hit, several polytunnels were washed away, and roads were impassable, so they began making small purchases from Beijing, Changchun, and elsewhere.

Pork was also temporarily in short supply. Pork wholesale shops in the market could usually sell more than a dozen pigs a day, but because the abattoir was also affected by the flood, and some of their trading partners were hit, in recent days only two or three pigs arrived each day, and by the morning they had all been reserved.

The Village Was Submerged for Three Whole Days

Beyond the city, several riverside townships in the northeast were struck by floodwater. In many places roads and bridges were washed away and houses swept away, but the rescue resources and attention they received were far less prompt than the city’s.

On 14 July, following the downpour in Dunhua, Dashitou Town and Shahayan Town, 30 kilometres from the city centre, temporarily became “isolated islands”. Many netizens posted that they had still been unable to get in touch with their families and were hoping to draw attention. Several others told Foodthink that some disaster videos, once posted online, were soon required to be deleted by local authorities.

In the towns, many residents were elderly and not accustomed to using the internet to ask for help; with water and electricity cut off and no signal, they could only wait for rescue.

And these places were the hardest hit. In Shahayan Town, the Shahe River, one of the main tributaries of the Mudan River, runs from the southeast to the northwest, forming an S-bend near Shahe Bridge. Due to the terrain, when the flood peak arrived, the water rapidly overflowed the banks here, flooding a nearby area of several hundred metres.

The bridgehead took the brunt. An old house and several polytunnels were swept away without a trace. A nearby two-storey building survived, but standing water still reached 3 metres. The building was a hair salon. Its owner, Sister Qiao, recalled to Foodthink that the shop had also been flooded last year, but the water level had only been about 40 centimetres. This time, she had placed household appliances, including the fridge, on waist-high tables at home in advance, and she and her family went up to the first floor. Little did she know that by that evening the water had flooded the ground floor. Power and signal quickly cut out, and she was trapped on the first floor for five or six days before she was able to let her children know she was safe.

On the afternoon of 20 July, beside the main road in Shahayan Town, Uncle Wang was squatting at his doorway cleaning a machine, with the whole gate caked in silt. On the afternoon of 14 July, he had still been doing woodwork outside when he suddenly saw water rolling in from the south of the town. In under half an hour, it had already reached his knees. Seeing the water coming, Uncle Wang quickly evacuated. Behind him, “the water was chasing the people down.”

Fortunately, Uncle Wang’s 85-year-old mother had already been moved in advance to the school evacuation point. When that day’s experience was brought up again, he was still shaken. “How could I not be afraid?”

The evacuation had been so hurried that Uncle Wang had not had time to take anything. When he reached the school evacuation point that evening, each person had only been given a plastic sheet, and Uncle Wang and his mother lay on it and slept as it was.

At 60, he had been through three floods, the earliest in the 1950s, then in 2018. This time was the worst: the whole village was submerged for three whole days. A rotting stench hung over the village. The smell came from drowned livestock. Disinfection teams were everywhere, and strict precautions were being taken to prevent a subsequent epizootic.

Three days later, the water receded. Uncle Wang stepped into his yard again. The storehouse had been washed away, and the farm machinery had been soaked. The water supply had just been restored, but the power was still out. He washed his clothes and shoes and put them out at the doorway to dry. What worried him most now was still the house. The brick house had been built 30 years earlier; after being waterlogged, if it was not repaired it could not be lived in, and if it was repaired it would cost a great deal of money. “If the water rises again in a few years, no one can say.”

Fortunately, the villagers had all evacuated in time. During the visits, several villagers told Foodthink that no local people had died, but in Changle Village, people from outside the area had lost their lives in the flood because they were not aware of the flood conditions. The villagers said that several young people had shared a lift to Yanji for an exam and to visit relatives. As the motorway was closed and the driver was unfamiliar with the road conditions, he took a wrong turn and ran straight into the flood; the car and everyone in it were swept into the river. Villagers who witnessed the rescue and recovery said that the driver and the passengers had all failed to escape.

When Foodthink passed through Changle Village, rescue teams could be seen at the bridgehead. Most of the rescue forces that had arrived in the nearby townships were local volunteer teams, Party member vanguard posts, and deployed cadres.

A little after 6 pm, the sun went down, and rescue teams from Shahayan Town began their return journey. The signal vehicle left as well, and the signal cut out once more.

With the power still out, the villages fell into darkness one by one, and the rain began again.

Two Months of Rain and Waterlogged Land

The rain had been falling for nearly two months. Generally, maize is sown in Dunhua in mid to late May. Uncle Wang remembered that he had already sown and had finished applying the pre-emergence herbicide before emergence. Just as he was waiting to apply the second round of pesticide, the rain began.

Chen Yuan, who was in the city, also remembered that between May and July there had only been a few clear days. Although the rain was not heavy, it kept falling without stopping; in previous years there would only be a few days of rain over this period.

A water conservancy expert who did not wish to be named explained to Foodthink that the northeast is not a dry, rain-scarce region, and rainfall during the normal rainy season is not low either. Over the past two to three decades, rainfall in northern regions has indeed increased. Meanwhile, with climate anomalies, the frequency of extreme rainfall has also increased, causing above-standard rainfall in local areas and leading to more disasters.

President Xu Xiaofeng of the China Meteorological Service Association had noticed the abnormal weather in the northeast this year. He explained to Foodthink that, from May this year, the Northeast Cold Vortex and warm, moist air moving north had abnormally formed a strong rain belt in the northeast. The large amounts of early rainfall had led to a high base-water level in the soil. The landfall of Bawi brought a fresh supply of moisture, causing extreme rainfall in some local areas, a sharp surge in river levels, and a sudden rise in flood-release pressure. Although Bawi passed quickly, the original rain belt in the northeast persisted strongly, worsening the disasters.

In this flood, large areas of farmland were damaged. Foodthink saw, while walking along the river channel, that large stretches of maize fields near river bends had been flooded; after the water had passed, the maize was caked in mud and lay lodged on the ground.

This year Uncle Wang rented 20 mu of land to grow maize, and half was flooded in this flood. Even if he sold the harvest from the remaining half, he could only barely recoup his costs. Another villager from Zhongxin Village told Foodthink that about 90 mu of their land had been flooded, and the rent alone had resulted in losses of several tens of thousands of yuan.

The continuous rainfall had not only damaged crop and vegetable growth, but had also had a major impact on the local ginseng industry. In Dashitou Town, Dunhua, many netizens posted that 10,000 mu of local ginseng fields had been affected and waterlogged. Many local industry figures also told Foodthink that a number of ginseng farmers in Dunhua, Antu and elsewhere had been severely affected.

As the foremost of the “Three Treasures of the Northeast,” ginseng is widely cultivated in Jilin Province. In 2025, the output value of Jilin ginseng exceeded 100 billion yuan, with both output and transaction volume ranking first nationwide. Tonghua, Dunhua, and Baishan are all major production areas.

As early as early June, many Jilin ginseng farmers had posted that their ginseng fields had been waterlogged. By July, in many areas, to cope with the heavy rain brought by the landfall of Bawi, several reservoirs began releasing floodwater. According to China Jilin Net, on 13 July, Dunhua carried out pre-release in 11 small and medium-sized reservoirs ahead of time to create spare capacity, freeing a total of 3.11 million cubic metres of spare reservoir capacity.

But the rainfall on 14 July still put pressure on local rivers and reservoirs. From 6 am on 14 July to 6 am on 15 July, the average precipitation in Dunhua City reached 109.1 mm, and the 24-hour rainfall set a new local historical record. By 6 am on 15 July, 10 of the city’s 38 small and medium-sized reservoirs had exceeded their flood-limit water levels, seven rivers had exceeded their warning water levels, and six rivers had exceeded their guaranteed water levels.

The water surged toward riverside villages. In Dashitou Town and Qinggouzi Township, Dunhua, some ginseng fields close to the river were extensively submerged.

A ginseng farmer from Dashitou Town, Dunhua, known as Xiao Mei, said that 15 mu of her three-year-old ginseng field had been inundated by backflowing river water, causing losses of over 500,000 yuan. Although it was not yet harvest season, she had no choice but to dig up the fresh ginseng and sell it cheaply at just over 7 yuan per jin. Another ginseng farmer from Qinggouzi Township, Dunhua, told Foodthink that excessive flood release from an upstream power station had caused river water to overflow three villages and flood their own ginseng fields. A further ginseng farmer’s 10-mu ginseng field was directly washed away, causing losses of over 100,000 yuan.

Li Qi, a ginseng farmer from Tonghua, Jilin, told Foodthink that in the early days ginseng farmers grew ginseng on the mountains, where the slopes had good drainage, which was naturally beneficial for ginseng, a crop not tolerant of waterlogging. But felling trees for cultivation caused soil erosion, and after the state introduced forest protection policies, such practices were prohibited. Many ginseng farmers therefore had no choice but to “come down from the mountains,” converting their farmland and flat land for cultivation. Planting on flat land is prone to flooding. Once a ginseng field has poor drainage, two days of soaking can breed pathogens and greatly affect growth. Ginseng roots are extremely intolerant of waterlogging; if the soil moisture is too high, the roots struggle to breathe, and the ginseng can also suffocate.

Liu Bing, who has been trading wild ginseng for more than 30 years, said that in recent years many local farmers have also been keen to convert farmland to grow ginseng. He had done the sums: growing maize brought in just over 1,000 yuan per mu, whereas growing ginseng lowered management costs, and as long as no frost or flooding occurred, a good market could bring in tens of thousands of yuan per mu. Among the ginseng farmers he knew, almost none had bought commercial insurance, all feeling that the northeast climate was relatively stable and that they did not need insurance.

But the climate has changed, and the weather challenges facing ginseng farmers have become increasingly frequent. Li Qi noticed that May and June used to see little rain, but over the past two years this period has simply become the rainy season, “as rainy as the south.” The climate has also become less cold, more as if there were no spring. Winter ends, and with only a few days of spring, it goes straight into a hot, rainy summer. In July last year, a typhoon struck the northeast, and many ginseng farmers were flooded. Li Qi’s family was badly flooded too, “it is just that little is reported upwards.”

In early July, upon learning that a typhoon was about to make landfall, Li Qi began digging deep drainage ditches, setting up drainage channels, and taking other emergency measures. Amid days of continuous heavy rain, Li Qi managed to keep his ginseng field from being flooded.

As for the future of ginseng cultivation, she had a near-resigned attitude: “It is like fighting Heaven—can you beat it? There is no way to overcome it; you can only follow Heaven’s will.”

The “Mountain to Floodplain” Land Dilemma

Many netizens have posted, questioning whether improper local flood release had caused the damage.

In response, the water conservancy expert mentioned earlier said that for water management infrastructure such as reservoirs, the first priority is to ensure the safety of the hydraulic works themselves. When torrential rain occurs, pre-release is essential; the dam’s design flood level must not be exceeded, and downstream areas are generally notified before flood release so that people can be moved to safety. Given the high population density and limited land, many traditional flood channels have been developed and used by people, and even by local governments. Much of the downstream flood-release evacuation area in the northeast this time was originally a flood flow zone or flood storage area.

This kind of situation is not uncommon. He said that in the Yangtze region, in some flood retention and storage areas with a flood defence standard of 1-in-100-year, people cultivate and reside. These areas often have fertile soil, and as long as no major flood occurs, they are generally suitable for cultivation. Over the past few decades, urban fringes have been intensively developed and used. The state maintains a red line of 1.8 billion mu of land, and to maintain the balance between occupied and compensated land, much basic farmland has also begun to expand by “going up the hills and down onto the river flats”. In many places, parts of river flats that had not been flooded for decades were gradually converted into basic farmland.

The question is whether water management infrastructure in rural areas can cope with the increasingly frequent intense rainfall in the future and the possible flooding and waterlogging disasters it may trigger? He told Foodthink that urban embankments mostly meet standards and generally are not expected to have major problems, but rural areas are extensive and river channels are dispersed, so flood defence facilities cannot all be built to high standards; most can only withstand 1-in-10-year to 1-in-20-year floods.

Flood awareness across northern regions also needs strengthening. In the view of Song Xianfang, a researcher at the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, human activities have expanded over the past few decades: “We have forgotten where floods are supposed to go, blurred the boundaries, and the places that were always bound to be flooded naturally suffer damage.”

In 2024, when Song Xianfang went to eastern Jilin for field research, he also experienced a flood firsthand. He told Foodthink that in many affected areas, response measures were still insufficient. He gave an example: because there had been no floods for a long time, many amusement facilities had been developed on the water. The 2016 Qili River flood in Xingtai caused heavy casualties, and the amusement facilities were all washed away. Only after the 2023 Zhuozhou flood did the local area begin to build reservoirs and construct river channels.

The water conservancy expert mentioned earlier told Foodthink that in the 1950s and 1960s, local farmers used to carry out water management works every winter and dredge river channels. Today, large numbers of farmers have moved into cities, and relying entirely on professional staff to do this has its limits.

He also said that flood defence cannot rely on engineering alone; non-structural measures are also needed. When faced with above-design floods, flood release should be the main measure, with protection as a secondary measure. If only engineering works are relied upon, the tension between people and water is acute, costs are high, and the risk is also high; once embankments are overtopped, the losses are even more severe. In his view, flood defence through non-structural measures is relatively reasonable. He stressed that forecasting can be strengthened and land use can be strictly managed, so that high value-added, high-tech industries are not placed in flood-prone areas, and that commercial agricultural insurance can be further promoted, with insurance companies and government disaster relief then making up for farmers’ losses.

Although the flood has now passed, these tasks are still especially urgent. Xu Xiaofeng said that the northeast is still within the rain belt. As the normal July rainy season arrives, the flood situation could worsen further, some areas may suffer secondary damage, and vigilance is still needed.

Several days after the floodwater had receded, Dunhua was still in reconstruction. On 20 July, while Chen Yuan was removing standing water from his shop, he was caught in another shower, and rainwater rushed down from the roof. He took the mop over to rinse it and said with a sigh that if it had not been for two clear days in between, the shop could not have been cleaned up at all today.

And the weather forecast showed that rain would continue over the next week. According to a forecast issued by the Central Meteorological Observatory on 23 July, rainfall in the northeast region is still continuing, with heavy rain and rainstorms in central Heilongjiang, northern Jilin, eastern Liaoning and elsewhere. The western part of the northeast region has severe convective weather, with thunderstorm winds of force 8 or above or hail.

The rain will still fall.

– This is Foodthink’s 827th original article –

Unless otherwise stated, all images in the article were taken by the author.

The interviewees Chen Yuan, Li Qi, Liu Bing, Juan Jie and Qiao Jie are pseudonyms.

Editor: Xiao Dan

Layout: Ming Lin

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