An NPC representative from Zhanjiang proposed stepping up efforts to strengthen “short” seawalls on the 2015 session of Guangdong Provincial People’s Congress for the sake of 100,770 people’s safety.

The NPC representative Fu Bin said that the “short” seawalls were neglected in the province’s seawall reinforcement work, which severely threatened the security of more than 100 thousand people’s lives and properties.

Guangdong has the longest coastline among all provinces in China, which extends 4029.6 kilometers. According to statistics from the Provincial Water Resources Department, the 139 “long” seawalls, which means seawalls safeguard lands with an area exceeding 666.7 hectares, with a total length of 2,220 kilometers have been included into the provincial seawall reinforcement project, while the “short” seawalls that safeguard lands with an area of less than 666.7 hectares haven’t been listed yet.

Xuwen, a county under Zhanjiang city located at the southernmost tip of the Chinese mainland, frequently suffers the attacks of typhoons and storm surges. It has 65 seawalls extending 101.5 kilometers, of which 44 are “short” seawalls with a total length of about 51.1 kilometers that safeguards 4286 hectares of land. In 2014, two Super Typhoons “Ramasoon” and “Seagull” landed in Xuwen and severely damaged the old derelict seawalls, which has making the reinforcement work more of a pressing issue.

Fu Bin said most of the seawalls in Zhanjiang were built in 1950s and 1960s, which can only resist the storm surges that occur every five years or every ten years. The decades-old seawalls are not up to the modern seawall design standard which requires that seawalls can at least resist storm surges that occurs every 20 years. In key areas or cities, seawalls should be able to resist storm surges that occur every 50 years or even every 100 years.

Fu Bin said that historical statistics showed that more than 30 typhoons had occurred in Xuwen County over the last five decades. The two super typhoons in 2014 seriously damaged the existing seawalls, which has almost lost the function of protecting villages and farmlands.

“The seawalls in Xuwen is an epitome of the whole picture in Guangdong province,” Fu said, “for example，many other counties and districts in Zhanjiang, such as Leizhou, have the same problems.”

Fu Bin said the provincial government should be more determined and aggressive to “rejuvenate” the damaged seawalls, by taking measures like formulating the seawall reinforcement planning and raising the design standards, as well as giving full financial support.

Fu said although seawall reinforcement wasn't a new issue and proposing reinforcing seawalls in two sessions appeared striking up the same old tunes, he would continue to make the appeal until the problem settled.