Calamity

For China's farmers, the time of the annual shui tsai (water calamity) had come again. The muddy Yangtze, gorged with weeks of heavy rains, was spreading over more than 1,000 miles of south central China's rice bowl. To the north, "China's Sorrow," the great Yellow River, raced angrily over the broad Shantung flatlands.

The Communist Central Committee exhorted: "Dyke guards must display the spirit of throwing in their lot with the common people . . . the tendency to take care of one's self at the expense of the interest of the masses must be eliminated."

At week's end the Yangtze's rise stopped--temporarily at least--but the floods already ranked as the worst in decades.

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