A total of 1.6 million people are guarding the embankments of the
swollen Huaihe River and its tributaries as the battle against the
floodwaters reaches a critical point, local flood control officials
said on Saturday.
The floodwater crest is flowing rapidly towards the middle reaches
of the river, where water levels have exceeded warning marks for
more than 40 hours, said officials from Huaihe Flood Control
Headquarters.
The high water levels will remain for a long period and major
sections of the embankments risk being breached at any time, warned
the officials in Anhui Province, east China.
By
July 11, they had detected and reinforced 24 threatened
sections.
Flood control officials said on Saturday the water level at
Zhengyangguan hydrological station on the middle reaches of the
river, reached a record 27.65 meters at 5 pm Friday, and the water
level at Jiangba hydrological station on Hongze Lake, on the lower
reaches of the Huaihe River, also rose to a record 14.3 meters at 7
pm Friday.
The flood control authorities are preparing to use more floodwater
diversion areas.
Preparations are now underway to make Chengxi Lake, the largest
floodwater diversion area in the Huaihe River Valley, ready to take
floodwaters.
Premier Wen Jiabao flew to the Huaihe River Saturday to inspect and
direct flood control work along the river ravaged by the worst
flooding since 1991.
The valley has been hit by heavy to rainstorms in recent weeks, and
tens of millions of residents have been affected and several
million hectares of farmland have been inundated.
The Huaihe River originates in Henan Province, central China, and
runs through the provinces of Anhui, Jiangsu and Shandong, east
China, before emptying into the Yellow Sea.
The river valley, home to 150 million residents, is one of the
country's major grain-producing areas.
(Xinhua News Agency July 12, 2003)