Women volunteers clean up mud after a flood in Qijiang District, Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. [Qijiang Women's Federation]

Due to severe rainstorms and heavy downpours, massive floods swept across southern China this year. 

Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality has been experiencing one of the worst floods in recent years. On June 22, the flood in the municipality's Qijiang District hit the highest water level since 1940, affecting 38,096 people in 16 towns and sub-districts. 

Members from the Safety Sister, a women volunteers' team under the Qijiang Women's Federation, 
are fighting on the front line of the disaster relief, guarding the safety of local residents. 

The women volunteers' team consists of female lawyers, women volunteers, members of the executive committees of the women's federations of the towns, sub-districts, villages and neighborhood committees in the district.

They have taken root at the grassroots level to publicize legal knowledge, help women and children protect their rights, mediate marriage and family disputes, and participate in community governance.

Jiang Chengqun, director of a community in Ganshui Town and member of women volunteers' team, has been on call 24 hours a day since June 12. Faced with the continuously swollen river, she organized community workers to drain away water and monitor the water level on June 22. She also led some community workers and women volunteers to persuade vendors in an agricultural-product market in hard-hit areas to leave the market and help them move goods.

"When it flooded on June 12, the water just reached the threshold of the market, many vendors still clung to the possibility that nothing bad would happen and refused to leave," Jiang said, adding that she knew how they felt but life must come first.

Some vendors suffered huge losses caused by the floods, and were subject to enormous mood swings. After setting their mind at rest, Jiang and her teammates turned to clean up the mud without a stop.

After receiving a warning on June 22, Wang Xi, president of the women's federation of a community 
in Gu'nan Sub-district, immediately went from door to door with community workers and women volunteers to inform residents in low-lying areas along the river to get ready to evacuate and set up security lines.

Engaged in organizing the residents for transfer, Wang missed an emergency notice from her son's school that required parents to pick up their children. She was later relieved to learn that her son had been picked up by another parent and taken home.

Also on June 22, Zou Jingrong, a community worker and volunteer, tried her best to help evacuate empty nesters in danger and then cleaned up mud. 

Enhanced efforts have been made by women volunteers in the flood relief, which have greatly reduced the losses of local people in Qijiang District. They braved the raging floods to build up the strongest "levees" in the district.

According to the Ministry of Emergency Management, the central government has earmarked 600 million yuan (about $85.76 million) to support flood control and relief in five provincial-level regions, including Chongqing, Jiangxi, Anhui, Hubei and Hunan.

(Source: China Women's News/Translated and edited by Women of China)