Hundreds of millions of dollars in damage from flooding through logistics towns! What should we be wary of?

Source: Logistics Times

■Extreme rainstorms were the primary factor in the huge losses, but were there others?

At the beginning of August, extreme rainstorms hit the Beijing-Hebei region. The book publishing town of Hebei Zhuozhou was one of the areas severely 

affected by the rainstorm in North China, and the Beijing Southwest Logistics Center located here was severely affected, with preliminary reports having 

caused hundreds of millions of yards of book losses. The tragic lesson, attracting deep thought, more thought-provoking.

▍Hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, the plague of God, and is there any human error?

Beijing is the center city of China's publishing industry, over the past few years, Beijing has a large number of book publishing enterprises subject to relief 

policies and other regulatory impact, will be warehousing, printing and other business relocation to the surrounding Zhuozhou, Langfang, Tianjin and other 

places, the formation of the publishing industry of the ring of the Beijing industrial zone.

Zhuozhou is an important link in the industry chain - hundreds of related industries store their books in the Zhuozhou Park of the Beijing Southwest Logistics 

Center, which covers an area of 400 acres, and the surrounding areas. The logistics center is currently the largest book logistics park in Beijing, together with 

the surrounding publishing houses, there are about 100 large and small warehouses.

Unfortunately, the logistics center became the hardest hit area in the rainstorm affected by Typhoon Dusu Rui.

Publishing organizations' warehouses were flooded under the rainstorm. Beijing Times Huayu International Media Co., Ltd, unread, in the map of the network 

and many other publishing organizations on August 1, one after another issued an announcement, affected by the rainstorm, the warehouse was flooded, 

the books soaked, heavy losses, will be delayed delivery. Zhongtu.com employees trapped in the warehouse office building, a group of book lovers relayed 

the message of distress, will be sent to the hot search.

August 2, more than 70 employees trapped in the network has been rescued, but the book loss is heavy. Staff told the media: 20,000 square meters of warehouses,

300 million yards of books damaged, optimistic estimates only 25% of the books were not damaged.

Ran Zijian, president of Time Warner, said that the affected warehouse area of nearly 8,000 square meters, the inventory of books has about 3.6 million books, 

220 million yards, almost all damaged. "These books are almost waste paper and can't be disposed of." This is their only storehouse.

Extreme rainstorms were of course the primary culprit in the huge losses. But, were there any other factors? It is understood that the site of the logistics park 

because of the low-lying terrain, another major factor criticized by the media.

Because of the low-lying terrain, after the rainstorm, the flooding water was poured into the warehouse, resulting in extremely serious secondary disasters.

Beijing Times Huayu International Media Co., Ltd. and Unread (Tianjin) Culture Media Co., Ltd. two publishing organizations issued a "letter to customers", 

which mentioned that "the depth of water in the warehouse is as high as 2 meters, and all the books were soaked," "water and electricity interruptions, the road 

is impassable, and the warehouse into the water is serious, and the loss of heavy! ".

Another warehouse staff said: "The warehouse would have had more than 70 centimeters of steps, under normal circumstances the water is not diffuse in." But 

the height of the water level completely exceeded her imagination, "the depot is basically a total loss."

Inadequate forethought and preparation was also another factor in the huge loss.

A staff member said, at that time, the surrounding villages have been notified to evacuate, we did not take it seriously, did not even think about it. And when 

the group notified everyone to pay attention to safety, then the water rushed in, especially fast. "Pressing to think about it!" Did not even have time to put 

sandbags, the water is already 20 centimeters.

For some mature, large logistics companies, often have molded natural disaster emergency plan. When receiving natural disaster warnings such as rainstorms, 

will start in accordance with the program to dispose of accordingly. If when received the meteorological bureau rainstorm will come to the warning, Zhuozhou 

Park enterprises can prevent the disaster before it happens, early books will be transferred to the high ground or other warehouses, the loss may not be so big.

▍Behind the lively construction of logistics parks, safety is a pillar that must be welded firmly

It is not too late to mend. Tragic lessons, and more importantly, a reminder that we should not make similar mistakes.　　　

In recent years the development of China's logistics park is fast and hot, especially with the development of e-commerce and express delivery, promoting 

the rapid development of urban logistics. According to recent data, the total number of various types of logistics parks in the country that meet the basic 

conditions of the survey is 2,553, an increase of 55.9% over the 1,638 of the fifth survey in 2018, and the growth momentum is not decreasing.

In the planning and design of logistics parks, the price of land, transportation conditions, and facilitating large-scale, clustered development often become 

the most concerned elements that can successfully attract investment. This, of course, safety is also a necessary factor, but weigh to weigh to go, often for 

other factors "to make way" or again and again to reduce the allocation.

In addition, in recent years, the development of logistics parks has undergone a series of changes. From the traditional production supply chain, commodity 

supply chain to the modern logistics supply chain, service supply chain, logistics industrial park also experienced from single business to multi-business, from 

single field to multi-field, from rough management to refinement management and from manual labor to the combination of full automation and full intelligence 

with information technology, the value of the asset is more and more high.

The Zhuozhou logistics park disaster reminds us that this tendency to neglect safety production is not acceptable, and safety is an extremely important pillar 

that must be welded firmly.

Taking flood prevention as an example, the logistics park should avoid planning in low-lying terrain and mountain passes as far as possible, and the planning 

near rivers and lakes should be as close to high places as possible. In addition, we must give full consideration to the flood control and drainage capacity building, 

to delineate the flood control and drainage space location, supporting facilities, land and other control lines for the park flood control and drainage water security 

to do long-term plans, but also sub-areas of the reasonable layout of the drainage network, or flood control ditches.

Water and fire. Fire prevention is another important factor to be fully considered in the planning. Logistics park planning, not only to consider adequate 

firefighting facilities can be the first time to extinguish the fire, but also to give full consideration to the rational layout of roads, buildings, to facilitate the timely 

containment of the spread of fire.

In addition, preventive and control measures against epidemics are equally important. In logistics parks where people are concentrated, rational planning must 

be considered to effectively isolate and cut off the large-scale spread of similar infectious diseases. In addition, factors such as earthquakes and war preparations 

also need to be considered comprehensively.

▍Mastering scientific knowledge for effective disaster prevention and mitigation

In the history of mankind, all kinds of disasters occur every year. Although they for natural disasters can not be avoided, but we in addition to the source 

planning on prevention and control, but also through the mastery and use of some scientific knowledge to effectively prevent, so as to reduce the loss of people, 

property and material.

Still take Zhuozhou logistics park flood as a case study.

Under normal circumstances, the ground of the warehouse should be built higher, especially where the terrain is not high out. Why? One is to facilitate loading, 

usually about 1 meter high, equivalent to the height of the carriage. Can be pushed directly to the car. Another is that waterproof is very important, low places 

are more prone to waterlogging. But from a number of pictures to analyze the scene of the disaster, this logistics park, a number of warehouses but did not take 

into account these, the warehouse and the road outside are almost a plane, so the book also have to carry or use a forklift to load and unload. This design is very 

unreasonable. It may be to save money because of the higher cost of raising the height. But from the point of view of this tragic loss, the loss does not pay for 

itself. Warehouses with similar unreasonable designs are recommended to be raised and remodeled.

Most of our country has a monsoon climate, and summer is often a period of high incidence of heavy rainfall and flooding. Logistics parks or enterprises in the 

park, we should take precautionary measures, organize staff to carry out dredging pipe desilting, flood control sandbag preparation, circuit overhaul, roof repair and 

other pre-work, in order to strive to deal with extreme weather to lay a solid foundation.

It is also crucial to enhance the awareness of disaster prevention and mitigation of park properties and enterprises, and to improve the operational skills of staff 

in coping with extreme weather disasters. In this regard, in addition to the necessary popularization of relevant knowledge, it is also necessary to regularly 

organize drills for staff in accordance with the plan in order to enhance practical skills. Logistics parks as a temporary staff frequent changes in the place, this work

 is difficult to break the problem, it is recommended that the conditions of the park to actively explore the solution to the problem, the first to explore, the 

formation of a mature case to promote.

Finally, as the infrastructure of the logistics industry, the importance of logistics parks in improving disaster prevention, mitigation and relief capabilities through 

scientific and technological innovation is becoming more and more prominent. In this regard, the experience of GLP Asset Management Services (GLP ASP), an 

infrastructure asset management service company under GLP, is worth sharing. The intelligent risk management solution for logistics parks developed by GLP ASP

 integrates risk management for eight major elements: people, vehicles, goods, facilities, equipment, space, energy, and the environment, and effectively establishes 

five new types of capabilities such as rapid sensing, real-time monitoring, early warning, emergency response, and systematic evaluation through IoT, AI vision, and 

other technologies.

At present, many parties are rushing to Zhuozhou. May Zhuozhou be safe, and the rescuers should also protect their own safety.