Putting his life on the line
Selflessly putting his own health issues aside, role model official Liu Hu ensured pipelines providing remote communities with access to clean, running water were completed,
“Lung cancer!” In May 2017, the grim diagnosis from a doctor stunned Liu Hu, who was only 43 at the time. Fear, disappointment and bewilderment — a range of emotions overpowered his mind. Then, he calmed down and chose to live up to his sense of mission.
As the chief official responsible for water related projects in Jiashi county in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, he was soon telling himself to carry on with his duties despite adversity, disease or disaster.
Quietly, he received chemotherapy at a hospital in Kashgar, regularly took medicine, and seemingly recovered quickly so as to keep his work going.
Whether it was the summer heat or winter chill, he kept visiting villagers, inspecting hill sites and pipes, holding discussions with colleagues, researchers and the local elders, searching for proper solutions to the area’s drinking water related problems.
Liu has served as director of the water resources bureau in Jiashi since November 2016. In local Uygur language, the word Jiashi means “beautiful place”.
Yet, the land of beauty sandwiched between ice-covered mountains and the Taklimakan Desert, the largest in China, has been plagued by “bitter water” for centuries. With a precipitation of tens of millimeters during most years, its underground water and scarce water in streams and ground channels have been constantly contaminated with other elements, mainly due to earthquakes.
The water became reddish and turbid after one earthquake, says a Uygur elder named Keram Sayim in Ayaklang village. A plastic barrel in his kitchen has long been used to store water for sediment to settle first. Then the water is left in sunshine for hours, boiled later and steeped in tea to reduce the bitterness.
Without healthy water, local people suffered and few tourists visited despite the area’s well-known attractions, says Kurax Kawul from Ayaklang.
Having healthy and safe water has been a prime dream for the 470,000 local people in the otherwise pleasant landscape.
Ever since he took office, Liu has made it his mission to bring “sweet and clean” drinking water to all in the county, curb water related illnesses and lift the locals out of poverty in line with the national goal to eliminate absolute poverty by 2020.
One plan was to extract groundwater and clean it for drinking. However, “surface water for human consumption will reduce groundwater extraction. Reducing the extraction of groundwater is very restorative and helpful to the ecosystem”, Liu once told CGTN. Not only that, it is also likely to cause pollution.
Abbas Sidik, deputy director of the water bureau, notes that an idea of introducing fine water from afar had been floated for a long time. “We dared not think about it,” he says, because of the geographical and financial difficulties.
Months of trekking, arguments and surveys finally led to a consensus in early 2018 that the best solution was to channel snow melt water from a glacier on Mount Muztagata to Jiashi, spanning nearly 2,000 kilometers across three counties from the upper reaches of the Gez River.
That year, the Ministry of Water Resources adopted a series of measures to improve drinking water quality across the country, backed up by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance.
Despite his occasional uneasiness, cough and chest pains, Liu led his colleagues in the search for the best locations and proper facilities in preparation.
He kept busy in mountain valleys, construction sites and villagers’ homes, as well as often traveling to the counties, its immediate superior administrative center in Kashgar and the region’s capital city Urumqi.
Sometimes, he suffered so much that he had perspiration all over him, but he insisted on continuing with his work. After getting some treatment, he would rush back to the village to once again take charge, instead of staying in hospital for treatment as per his doctor’s suggestion.
For seven days a week, he traveled high and low to confirm the route, visited villages and towns, checked the details of the design and planning. In Sokanasty village in Yoltograk county, the smiling official was surrounded by villagers deep into the night explaining to them why the proposed route could not be redirected from a specific field.
“I would rather be scolded by villagers for days than be blamed for life for not getting them healthy water,” Liu says. The villagers say Liu has “a myna bird’s mouth” in persuading others, “flying legs” to visit household after household, and a “rubber heart” that resists flak and unwarranted accusations.
Still, his body failed him. A collapse at work in April 2019 left him in hospital for days, and again he did not stay as long as doctors insisted he should, because three major works — water acquisition, channeling and distribution — were set to begin.
On May 2, 2019, Liu seemed to have forgotten all his health troubles when overseeing the formal launch of the Jiashi county’s urban and rural drinking water safety project, with 1.75 billion yuan ($271.43 million) investment from the State.
“The faster we finish the project, the earlier people can drink healthy water, and one day earlier is also one step closer to winning the battle against poverty,” Liu would say in a bid to encouraging himself and others.
To ensure that pipelines were laid properly, he often had to walk 20 to 30 km a day. While finding pipeline problems at Yoltograk village, he ordered that the whole line be re-laid.
At that time, the whole country roared ahead with its poverty alleviation effort. It turned out that Jiashi and Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture in Sichuan province were home to the nation’s remaining groups of people — 25,000 in all — still troubled by substandard drinking water. Among them, Jiashi county had 4,044 households and around 15,300 people.
In early 2020, when he should have been heading to hospital, Liu made camp inside the main water plant instead.
However, the COVID-19 outbreak prevented construction crew from returning and resuming work on Feb 10 as scheduled. Liu patiently called the construction teams and workers one by one. But most of the answers were: “Sorry, I am in home isolation.”
“No matter how daunting the difficulties are, we need to find a way to adjust the plan to ensure that the project is completed on schedule,” Liu would say.
“He kept in touch with technicians in Kashgar,” recalls Osman Rahman, a former driver for Liu. “We welcomed people from one community after another and kept sending them to the site.” Liu’s diligence and persistence paid off as construction resumed in March.
But he had to skip proper treatment time and again, and even “suspended chemotherapy for five months,” says Rahman. However, one after another, problems with the project were solved.
One day in April 2020, when fixing some equipment at a main water plant, his mobile phone rang. “Hu, when are you coming home?” His father asked with some hesitation.
“I’ve been busy lately, and I’ll be home when the expected water arrives,” he told his father before hanging up.
Three days later, his mother called and said his father missed him, and Liu promised to visit them after the glacier water arrived. His wife Song Guirong also called and asked him to visit his sick father.
His father, hospitalized for weeks, longed to see him. People suffer too much from the bitter water, he told his family, and he needed to help bring it to an end.
Liu quickly returned to the project sites, monitoring progress day and night. Days later during a test, a water leakage was found at a station in Kizkant village of the neighboring Tokuzak county. When he directed the installation of new pumps and pipes, it was 4 in the morning. He led his colleagues on to the next station against freezing wind, without a moment’s rest for the whole night.
At one point, while coordinating a team of engineers and construction workers, he suddenly blacked out and collapsed. When he regained consciousness, Liu brushed off the incident and headed back to work. Soon, however, he lost the vision in his left eye.
Xie Chengxin, a doctor in charge of treating Liu, says that his treatment was fair in 2017 and reasonable in following months. But, his busy schedule had kept him from getting sufficient rest and recuperation and he had failed to get proper treatment. “His treatment was significantly delayed,” Xie says.
On May 26 last year, however, the good news, literally, flowed through Jiashi. Safe potable water, traveling along 112 km of trunk conduit and 167 km of branch channels, reached more than 100,000 families in the county via 1,548 km of distribution pipes.
“Sweet water has arrived!” the villagers in Jiashi kept telling each other.
“No matter how busy I was, I am happy,” a village Party official named Kurax Kawul, who helped renovate pipelines and equip water outlets, exclaims. “This time, this is really healthy water! A new beautiful life dawns on us.”
With Liu’s guidance and supervision, the project was finished one month ahead of schedule, which had already been squeezed to about a year from the three-year norm for such an endeavor.
“The hopes of generations of locals to drink safe water have been fulfilled in our time,” he says. “How proud we are!”
A month later, the last groups of people in Sichuan finally began to receive clean, healthy water, marking an end to thousands of years of difficulty.
Meanwhile, the cancer cells again sent Liu to the sick bed. “I have no regrets in this life,” he told his family. “All my work is worthwhile.”
Liu was admitted to hospital again in September 2020, but this time, he had become paralyzed, before losing his speech in early March. “The cancer cells had spread and metastasized to the bone marrow,” explains Xie, who is involved in Liu’s ongoing phase-four chemotherapy.
Ani Mehmet from Olturgulluk village was in tears when visiting Liu in the hospital. “You helped us to get healthy and clean tap water, and solved my son’s tuition problems, but you exhausted yourself too much,” the villager said.
On Feb 25, on his bed in an ICU ward and with the help of his brother, on a mobile phone Liu watched a live broadcast of a grand gathering at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, during which awards were granted to role models in the fight against poverty. When Liu heard President Xi Jinping mention his name for the honor, his lips trembled and tears rolled down his cheeks.
No matter how daunting the difficulties are, we need to find a way to adjust the plan to ensure that the project is completed on schedule.”
Liu Hu, director of the water resources bureau in Jiashi county of Kashgar prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region