A woman passes homes damaged after the breach of Liulan Reservoir in Hengzhou, China, on July 8, 2026. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images
The Chinese regime has raised the official death toll from July’s catastrophic flooding in Guangxi to 159, but people interviewed by The Epoch Times say the number remains far below what they believe were the actual casualties.
The revised figure, announced Aug. 21 at post-disaster reconstruction meetings in Nanning and Guigang, includes 10 people still listed as missing. Authorities said Nanning accounted for 136 deaths and all 10 missing people, while Guigang reported 23 deaths. The new figure is more than four times the 39 deaths authorities reported on July 9.
State media Xinhua said authorities arrived at the latest figures through door-to-door inquiries, investigations, cross-checks, and comparisons of records.
However, people who spoke with The Epoch Times said the official toll does not reflect the scale of deaths they witnessed or heard about in the hardest-hit areas. They spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal.
Still Finding Bodies
A Nanning government insider told The Epoch Times that at least 10,000 people had died across Hengzhou.
The insider said that when casualty reports from townships in Hengzhou were compiled, one township alone reported more than 2,000 deaths.
“Most of those who died were elderly people and children left behind in the villages,” he said, since many children had been staying with their grandparents during the summer break.
He also said volunteers continued finding individual bodies in areas more than 10 miles from the worst-hit locations as mud was cleared.
The insider claimed that more than 100 bodies were recovered from a supermarket after floodwaters receded, saying people inside had become trapped after a rolling shutter was pulled down.
The Epoch Times could not independently verify the casualty estimates or his account of the supermarket.
A local volunteer who participated in rescue operations also described extensive loss of life.
The volunteer told The Epoch Times 28 people remained missing in one section of Yabi Village containing 73 households, based on information he had gathered locally.
After gaining access to the village when roads reopened, he said he saw a body caught in debris.
“I personally saw one body wrapped in debris,” he said. “There were also the carcasses of pigs and other animals.”
A resident of Longzi Village previously told The Epoch Times that two people had died there and that more than a dozen people in one production team in neighboring Yapi Village had been swept away.
Another resident told The Epoch Times that people living closest to the reservoir had little or no time to escape and that some victims remained buried beneath thick layers of mud.
The latest official figure itself represents a significant increase from the initial count, even though the regime has not publicly explained all of the discrepancies between earlier and later casualty reports.
The authorities’ revised figures came more than six weeks after the flooding,
widespread damage to roads, homes, and infrastructure in the affected areas.
The sharp increase has renewed questions among residents and people involved in rescue efforts about how many people actually died in the disaster.
Li Jing and Luo Ya contributed to this report.
