After floods kill dozens, local Chinese official uses AI to build evacuation app

In China, where summer rains annually trigger floods, officials face the critical task of ensuring public safety. Xie Yunshi, an official in the Beijing suburbs, has introduced an innovative solution to improve evacuation procedures: an artificial intelligence-powered smartphone app.

Traditionally, local governments relied on organizing teams to make individual phone calls to families during flood alerts, a process that was often cumbersome and conducted at inconvenient hours. This year, Xie sought a more efficient method. He invested about 30 yuan (US$4.40) in AI tokens for a domestic artificial intelligence platform to create the new app.

“

When waters rose in the past, his department would organise a dozen people to call every single family, sometimes at midnight.

The app enables grassroots officials and volunteers to quickly record whether residents are safe, significantly reducing the need for extensive phone calls. This technological advancement promises to enhance the speed and effectiveness of emergency responses during flood events, offering a more streamlined approach to safeguarding communities.

“

Grass-roots officials and volunteers can use the app to record whether people are out of danger, eliminating the need for endless phone calls.