Destiny carries soldier back to flood front line

As Jiang Ping jumped into the floodwaters to repair a broken dike last week, other soldiers from the People's Liberation Army followed his example.

A platoon leader, Jiang had been fighting the floods with his unit in Anhui province, which had been hit with severe flooding since early July.

From neighboring Jiangsu province, more than 1,000 troops had rushed to Tongling, a city situated along the Yangzte River, on July 11 in response to an urgent call for help.

After 12 days, the floodwaters there had been brought under control, but the work of the troops was not done. They were ordered to Hefei, the provincial capital, as Chaohu Lake was at risk of overflowing.

"Many houses and fields were submerged in both Tongling and Hefei," Jiang said. "The desperate situation is carved into my mind."

Born in 1992, Jiang experienced a wild moment in 1998, when a flood hit his hometown in rural Zongyang county, Anhui. The violent floods were among the worst on record in southern China.

One summer day, floodwaters suddenly rose in Jiang's village, which lay beside Pogang Lake, not far from the main channel of the Yangzte River.

"Most of my house, which was made of brick and tile, was on a single floor. It was quickly submerged but the water kept rising. My father lifted me and my elder brother to the roof," Jiang recalled.

"We were on the roof for nearly three hours and desperate, in fear of our lives," he said during a break from flood relief work on Thursday on the broken dike at the junction of the Baishitian River and Chaohu Lake, the country's fifth-largest freshwater lake.

He remembered his fear as he huddled with his family on the roof. And he remembered the surge of hope as a team of soldiers frantically rowed a rubber boat to the family carrying ropes and steel cables to rescue them. "An officer took me into his arms and tried to ease my panic. He said, 'Don't be afraid. We are here with you.'"