Almost half a million people have been evacuated from the
projected path of floodwaters from China's Huaihe River, which is
expected to see its worst flooding since 1954.
About 343,900 of the 488,800 relocated people came from Anhui
Province and the rest from the provinces of Henan and Jiangsu.
The three provincial authorities have mobilized 511,000 people
to patrol the Huaihe embankments and issue emergency warnings,
according to information from the State Flood Control and Drought
Relief Headquarters.
Thirteen sluices at Wangjiaba, a key hydrological station on the
river after it flows out of central China's Henan Province and
enters Anhui, were opened to divert waters to adjacent Mengwa
buffer zone, home to 150,000 people.
The move should bring relief to more than 2 million flood-hit
residents in Henan Province, on the upper reaches of the Huaihe
River, and alleviate pressure downstream, said Qiu Ruitian, deputy
director of the Office of the State Flood Control and Drought
Relief Headquarters.
However, at 4:00 AM Wednesday, the water level at Wangjiaba was
29.59 meters and it fell slightly to 29.55 meters later in the day,
according to Huaihe River Flood Control and Drought Relief
Headquarters.
The pressure on the embankments along both banks of the Huaihe
River has been mounting, endangering the safety of key cities and
railway lines on the middle and lower reaches of the river.
The Anhui Provincial Flood Control and Drought Relief
Headquarters was forced to put into use three minor flood diversion
zones downstream of Wangjiaba on Wednesday morning and to open 14
sluices at Jiangtanghu to divert water on Wednesday afternoon.
Cui Li, deputy head of Yingshang County Flood Control
Headquarters, said 43 households, 132 people in all who had been
living in low-lying areas of Jiangtanghu, had relocated by 10:00 AM
on Tuesday.
"Eighty police were mobilized to help residents remove their
belongings and thorough searches were also made to ensure all
residents in dangerous areas were moved to higher ground," said
Cui.
Anhui flood control workers have been racing to open the
embankment at the unpopulated Qiujiahu so that floodwaters could be
diverted there.
The Huaihe River originates from Mount Taibai, Henan Province,
and runs eastward between the Yellow River and the Yangtze River,
cutting through Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu provinces before entering
the Yangtze River via the Hongze Lake.
Tuesday's opening of 13 sluices could damage up to 12,000
hectares of cropland inside the 180-square-kilometer Mengwa flood
storage area. The impact on the residents was expected to be
limited, said local authorities.
Created in 1953, the area contains four townships, where most of
the residents live in homes built more than 31 meters above sea
level.
To prepare for Tuesday's diversion, four new protective
structures have been built around existing embankments to
accommodate 3,684 people who used to live in Mengwa's low-lying
areas.
Meanwhile, the level of Hongze Lake on the lower reaches of the
Huaihe River rose to 13.79 meters by 8:00 AM on Tuesday, 0.29
meters above the danger line, and is still rising.
Flood control workers at Tuesday noon opened more sluices on the
lake to discharge water into the Yihe River and an irrigation canal
running to the sea. Last week, they opened another sluice to allow
floodwaters to flow into the Yangtze River, the country's
longest.
Continuous torrential rain since late June has caused widespread
flooding across China, especially in southern areas, including the
Huaihe River valley, the provinces of Sichuan, Hubei, Shaanxi,
Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu, and Chongqing Municipality.
The death toll in the seven flood-hit provinces had risen to 131
and another 31 are missing, the Ministry of Civil Affairs reported
on Tuesday.
Nationwide, more than 66.3 million Chinese have been affected by
floods this summer, with 360 people killed and losses amounting to
24.3 billion yuan, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief
Headquarters announced on Wednesday.
China's central government set aside 232 million yuan (US$31.35
million) on Wednesday to finance the ongoing battle against floods
in Anhui, Jiangsu, Henan, Hubei, and Sichuan provinces.
Also Wednesday, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen
Jiabao urged local governments to try to improve weather
monitoring, give priority to people's safety, and properly relocate
people in flood-hit areas.
Several working teams have been dispatched by the central
government to flood-stricken areas to guide disaster relief work.
One of the working teams, headed by civil affairs minister Li
Xueju, arrived in Anhui on Wednesday. Another team, headed by
executive deputy minister of civil affairs, Li Liguo, arrived in
Sichuan on Tuesday.
(Xinhua News Agency July 12, 2007)