Yichang Schools Enter ‘Wartime State’ as Typhoon Dolphin Threatens Flooding

The education bureau of Yichang, the Chinese city closest downstream of the Three Gorges Dam, told every school in the city on Aug. 10 that the local education system was “entering a full wartime state.” Classes were canceled for Aug. 11 and 12, boarding students were confined to campus, and principals went onto 24-hour duty rosters. The phrase came inside an urgent notice about a typhoon, addressed to county and district education offices, and every measure it ordered was a flood precaution.

Within a day, the wording had set off an argument across Chinese social media over whether a local education bureau had the authority to use such language. Yichang’s location just downstream of the dam also drew attention from overseas Chinese-language commentators.

‘Wartime state’ wording draws questions over the bureau’s authority

Chinese internet users questioned whether a municipal education bureau, a subordinate local agency, had any authority to use language associated with a formal state of emergency. Commenters accused the bureau of scaremongering and overreach, and some said they would report the Yichang city government to the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee for allowing a subordinate office to misuse the term.

Legal specialists quoted by the mainland portal Sina objected on narrower grounds. “Wartime state” blurs an administrative mobilization order into a legal state of emergency, they said, and could cause unnecessary alarm. Others defended the wording as an effective way to convey the seriousness of the storm.

The notice itself, an urgent reminder on preparing for Typhoon Dolphin, cited orders from the provincial and municipal flood control headquarters. It imposed the “three suspensions,” stopping in-person classes at schools and private tutoring centers and halting work on campus construction sites. Education officials and principals were instructed to remain at their posts around the clock and supervise flood preparations in person.

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Typhoon Dolphin turned inland after two landfalls in Zhejiang

Dolphin, the thirteenth named storm of the 2026 Pacific season, came ashore in Zhejiang province on Aug. 9 and made a second landfall there soon after. It did its worst damage in Shanghai and Zhejiang before making an unusual sharp turn inland.

Forecasters expected a week of rain beginning August 10 across Hubei, Henan, Hebei, and Shandong, with heavy rainfall across all four provinces and extreme rainfall in scattered areas. China’s Ministry of Water Resources placed those provinces and several others under a Level IV flood emergency response the same day, the lowest of the system’s four tiers, with Level I reserved for the most severe conditions.

Rivers across the region were forecast to rise, including the middle Yangtze, the Han, the Huai, the lower Yellow, and the Hai. The ministry warned that the Sha-Ying and Yellow rivers could reach the thresholds at which China assigns floods official numbers, while smaller rivers in the four provinces could exceed warning levels.

Authorities were told to prepare flood retention basins, designated areas of farmland and settlements that can be used to temporarily store floodwater and reduce pressure downstream. Hubei’s provincial flood and drought defense center said Dolphin could bring more rain and a heavier impact than Typhoon Bavi did in July, and that the province’s reservoirs faced a severe test, Taiwan’s Liberty Times reported.

No evidence links the school order to the condition of the dam

Overseas Chinese-language accounts interpreted the wording as a sign that officials feared a breach at the Three Gorges Dam, which stands 36 to 40 kilometers, roughly 22 to 25 miles, upstream of downtown Yichang.

Nothing in the education bureau’s notice refers to the dam. The document names the typhoon and the flood control headquarters whose orders it was following, and the measures it imposed were school closures, restrictions on boarding students leaving campus, construction suspensions, and round-the-clock duty rosters.

Some of the online discussion pointed to the Liulan reservoir in Hengzhou, Guangxi, which overtopped in early July and opened a breach of about 50 meters in its embankment. A failure at a provincial reservoir offers no evidence about the structural condition of the Three Gorges Dam. The Liulan breach has nevertheless helped keep reservoir safety in the public eye during this summer’s floods.