Vice Premier Hui
Liangyu on Friday urged officials at all levels to make full
preparations for flooding and drought conditions across the country
this summer to avert natural disasters.
All departments should be fully mobilized to tackle flood
control and drought relief to best protect people's lives and
property, Hui said at a large-scale session attended by officials
of the state flood-control headquarters.
Safety along major rivers, large reservoirs, cities and
transportation lines must be guaranteed to ensure urban citizens
have enough water for their daily lives, said Hui.
Floods in past weeks have killed dozens of people across the
nation.
Rainstorms have been thrashing southwest China's Sichuan
Province where 15 lives have been claimed and seven are
missing, according to the Sichuan disaster relief centre.
Hui said meteorological departments are predicting that some
large-scale floods will probably plague certain areas, which could
lead to serious geological disasters in various mountainous
areas.
Vice Premier Zeng
Peiyan also hosted a cabinet meeting on Thursday in Beijing to
discuss how to deal with geological disasters.
Zeng said areas of the Three Gorges Project in central China
should receive special attention to prevent disasters because of
its special geological conditions.
Since the middle of last month, landslides caused by rainstorms
in Hunan
Province have killed at least 27 people, while a total of 3.3
million locals were plagued with problems because of the onslaught
of rains.
While some areas are being plagued by floods, some cities have
been scorched by high temperatures.
Continuous drought and heat have nearly depleted water resources
in the south China boomtown of Shenzhen, which neighbors Hong
Kong.
The reservoirs have just 80 million cubic meters of water, or 24
percent of their total capacity, and the water can last for only a
month with normal water supply, said Liao Liyang, director of the
Shenzhen flood prevention, drought and wind control
headquarters.
"If there isn't a large-scale rainfall within a month, the city
will be able to only meet 20 percent of normal supply," Liao
said.
The rainfall in the past six months was 27 percent less than the
average for the previous years, while urban water consumption has
been climbing remarkably.
But the water supply to Hong Kong will not be affected, Liao
said. China's mainland has been supplying clean water to Hong Kong
since the Dongjiang-Shenzhen Water Supply Improvement Project was
completed.
Water from the upper reaches of the Dongjiang River is diverted
to Hong Kong via a 57.1 kilometer-long closed-pipeline to avoid
pollution problems.
And the city of Guangzhou, capital city of south China's Guangdong
Province, has been experiencing a sustained heatwave since June
28.
The temperature monitored by Wushan ground meteorological
observatory of Guangzhou rose to 38.9 ℃?by 4 pm on Wednesday,
a record high for the area.
Hui said flood control and drought relief is "as heavy as a
mountain" and officials at all levels must pay full attention to
their work.
(China Daily July 3, 2004)