[11][12] Some experts have also stated that the focus on peasant steel production during the Great Leap Forward, as well as a number of policies from the campaign to "Learn from Dazhai in agriculture", severely damaged the ecosystem and forest cover in the region, which was a major cause of the flood, and the government's mishandling of the dam failure contributed to its severity.

[6][15] The long-term project, under the name of "Harness the Huai River", was launched to prevent flooding and to utilize the water for irrigation and generating electricity.

[8][15] By 1953, the construction work at the three reservoirs was completed, but a "reinforcement" project on Banqiao and Shimantan dams was further carried out from 1955 to 1956 following the instructions of the Soviet Union.

[8] On the other hand, the intense production of steel during the Great Leap Forward as well as the "Learn from Dazhai in agriculture" program launched by Mao severely damaged the ecosystem in the Zhumadian region.

[8] The percentage of forest cover dropped drastically and land degradation was prevalent, which, according to most experts, were the major causes of floods.

[2][5][10] He pointed out that the local geographical conditions made it unreasonable to overly emphasize the reservoir's function of water storage, because otherwise there was risk of creating serious floods and other disasters, such as alkalinization of farm land.

[8] However, the experts told Zhang privately that the degradation and the damage to the ecosystem due to Mao's Great Leap Forward were the major causes of the collapse of the dams.

On August 8, at 01:00, water at Banqiao crested at 117.94 m above sea level, or 0.3 m higher than the wave protection wall on the dam, and it failed.

Seven county seats, Suiping, Xiping, Ru'nan, Pingyu, Xincai, Luohe, and Linquan were inundated, as were thousands of square kilometers of countryside and countless communities.

Telegraphs failed, signal flares fired by Unit 34450 were misunderstood, telephones were rare, and some messengers were caught by the flood.

[3] The dikes on the Quan River collapsed in the evening of August 9, and the entire Linquan county in Fuyang, Anhui was inundated.

[12] Nine days later, there were still over a million people trapped by the waters, who relied on airdrops of food and were unreachable by disaster relief workers.

[28] As a result of this near stationary thunderstorm system, more than a year's worth of rain fell within 24 hours, which weather forecasts failed to predict.