Ren Benxin, a resident living near Dongting Hu, approaches his flooded home via boat. While some residents take to building houses in trees, officials recognise need for national response to climate disasters Every summer, Dongting Hu, China’s second-largest freshwater lake, swells in size as flood water from the Yangtze River flows into its borders. Dams and dikes are erected around the lake’s edges to protect against flooding. But this year, not for the first time, they were overwhelmed. For three days in early July, more than 800 rescue workers in Hunan province scrambled to block the breaches. One rupture alone took 100,000 cubic metres of rock to seal, according to Zhang Yingchun, a Hunan official. At least 7,000 people had to be evacuated. It was one of a series of disasters to hit China as the country grappled with a summer of extreme weather. By August, there had been 25 large floods, the biggest number since records began in 1998, reported state media . Xi Jinping, China’s president, “urged all-out rescue and relief work” to safeguard the people affected by the flooding in Hunan, state media reported. One of those people was Ren Benxin, an archaeologist who lives on a small, forested island in the upper tributaries of Dongting Hu. He calls his idyllic home Soultopia. As well as carrying out archaeological research, he provides accommodation for travellers and looks after the herd of stray cats and dogs that he has adopted over the years. Ren Benxin lives on a small, forested island in the upper tributaries of the lake. On 5 July, his home was flooded. “First, I rescued the animals. Then, I rescued the supplies,” he said. “It was the first time in 10 years that I’d experienced something like this.” The wooden huts in Ren’s corner […]