Guangxi Flood Survivors Call Dam Collapse a Man-Made Disaster, Dispute Official Death Toll
Guangxi residents filled the comment sections of Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, on July 15 with accusations that the government is hiding how many people died when the Liulan Reservoir dam collapsed on July 6. The dam sits in Hengzhou, a county-level city near the regional capital Nanning, and one commenter called its failure a “man-made calamity.” Others said neighbors who went out to pick tea that morning never came home.
Nine reservoirs across Guangxi developed dangerous conditions between July 6 and 7, four near Nanning and five near the city of Guigang. The Liulan dam was the one that failed: two sections of the dam gave way at around 11 a.m. on July 6, according to a statement from the Nanning city government, sending floodwater tearing downhill from Liulan village in Xiaoyi township through a string of low-lying villages and towns. Videos of the destruction spread widely online.
The most recent official casualty figures date to July 9. State media, which answer to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), reported at that time that 39 people had died and nine were missing across Guangxi, including victims of the Liulan breach, and that the dead and the missing might overlap because some bodies had not yet been identified.
Watch this video and then read what the Chinese propaganda told you about the number of deaths regarding the dam break of GuanxiAccording to official sources in China, the flooding and partial collapse of the Liulan Reservoir dam in Nanning, Guangxi has resulted in 39 confirmed… pic.twitter.com/Agz23jaVqm— ChinaVideos1 (@ChinaVideos1) July 16, 2026
Watch this video and then read what the Chinese propaganda told you about the number of deaths regarding the dam break of GuanxiAccording to official sources in China, the flooding and partial collapse of the Liulan Reservoir dam in Nanning, Guangxi has resulted in 39 confirmed… pic.twitter.com/Agz23jaVqm
A delayed water release preceded the breach, residents say
A Douyin commenter who identified as a local resident wrote that officials ordered the reservoir’s gates fully opened at 8 p.m. on July 5, but a fish farm operator reportedly asked to haul in nets first, and the release was pushed back to 8 a.m. the next morning. By then, the commenter claimed, the gates would not open at all; a steel cable snapped, and the dam breached later that morning. Floodwater reached the second floor of the family home within half an hour of the village committee’s warning, the commenter wrote. The account could not be independently verified.
Commenters identified Liulan village and neighboring Dutian village, the two settlements closest to the reservoir, as the worst hit, saying the flood scoured them down to their foundations. One wrote that a village of several dozen houses was destroyed in about ten minutes and that its elderly residents and children were gone. Another described a wall of water two to three meters high crashing into downstream villages too quickly for anyone to flee, and said a small mountain town upstream of the reservoir suffered just as badly.
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One resident shared photos of a household that reportedly lost four members, none of whom had been found. The debris itself killed people, another commenter wrote: the water carried steel bars and timber, and swimmers were reportedly battered or impaled. One commenter estimated that the footage circulating online showed a tenth of the real damage. Others accused officials of blocking videos while the flooding was under way, then filling the same platforms with rescue footage afterward, and one called a televised claim that villagers had been notified to evacuate a shameless lie.
Guangxi residents interviewed near the reservoir estimate deaths in the thousands
On July 13, villagers and volunteers in Yunbiao township, which sits directly in the floodwater’s main path, described the aftermath to The Epoch Times. A resident of Longzi village who gave the pseudonym Yang Li said the stench still hung in the air as younger residents returned to clear mud from their homes. Two people died in his village, he said, but neighboring Yabei village lost more than ten from a single production team. He put the overall death toll at a minimum of one thousand.
A resident of Guantang village who gave the pseudonym Mo Gang said he believed that estimate. Many of the dead remain buried under silt, he said, so excavator crews clearing debris must dig carefully to avoid damaging bodies. Several corpses had been recovered the previous day from debris lodged at the Yunbiao bridge, he added. A villager in adjacent Zhenlong township told the outlet that one of the township’s eight villages had been wiped out entirely, with many residents still buried, and estimated at least 500 deaths there alone.
Anti-Xi graffiti appears as censorship deepens public anger
Residents who posted pleas for rescue saw their messages deleted, civilian rescue teams ran into official restrictions, and tens of thousands of people were left stranded without food or water while the CCP played down the scale of the catastrophe.
Taiwan’s TVBS, citing posts circulating online, reported that on July 12 someone in Guangxi wrote slogans in red on a toilet door attacking Chinese leader Xi Jinping over the flood response: “Xi Jinping, step down” and “Guangxi is flooding, where did you die?”, along with a third slogan denouncing the Communist Party in language too vulgar to print. One commenter wrote that the flood had washed away more than a dam, exposing the last fig leaf of the Party’s “stability maintenance.” Another called the graffiti the voice of millions of ordinary people, and a third remarked that popular anger against the Party had been building for a long time.
The official casualty count for the disaster has not been updated since July 9.