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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, August 27, 2002

Floods, Droughts Continue to Harass China

The fight against flooding in Central China's Hunan and Hubei provinces came to a crux Monday, as East China's Shandong and Jiangsu provinces continued to suffer from severe water shortages.


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The fight against flooding in Central China's Hunan and Hubei provinces came to a crux Monday, as East China's Shandong and Jiangsu provinces continued to suffer from severe water shortages.

A thunderstorm packing high winds and torrential rains hit the northern and western parts of Hunan Province yesterday, including areas along the Lishui River, the lower reaches of the Yuanshui River and the northern parts of Dongting Lake.

Due to precautions taken by the local government, water levels in Dongting Lake and the Xiangshui, Zishui and Yuanshui rivers continued to recede slowly Monday despite the rainfall.

The one exception was the Lishui River, which witnessed a higher water level, according to sources with the provincial flood-control headquarters of Hunan.

Over 10,000 soldiers and armed policemen immediately rushed to the major dykes along Dongting Lake yesterday morning with equipment and life jackets to prepare for a possible dangerous situation.

The decisive battle to beat the flood has begun, and danger may appear at any time, especially around the inland lakes, the provincial flood- control headquarters announced.

Yang Zhengwu, secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, yesterday required all levels of governments and all departments to defend the dykes and ensure success in the battle.

The rainy weather is expected to continue until tomorrow.

Meanwhile, various measures have been taken in the disaster areas to prevent the outbreak of epidemic diseases, according to Jian Xuewu, director of the Hunan provincial disaster relief and disease prevention office.

The disaster-hit areas were immediately sterilized and rubbish and mud were cleared away after the flood receded, said Jian, noting that incidence of acute infectious disease declined in August compared with the same month last year.

In Hubei Province in the central and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the water level in the capital Wuhan reached 27.61 metres yesterday, 0.31 metres above the warning level. It is expected to continue to climb in the coming days.

Some 3,500 local people are now defending the dykes, while soldiers and armed police officers are on standby for rescue work, the headquarters said.

Despite the flooding in Central China, severe drought is affecting about two million people and one million head of livestock in Shandong Province in East China.

The rural areas of Jining, Liaocheng, Dezhou, Heze, Jinan and Bingzhou are the hardest hit, accounting for approximately 60 per cent of the total area affected by drought in the province.

Experts say exceptionally low seasonal rainfall is responsible for the drought. The rainfall recorded in the province from June 1 to August 19 was only 184 millimetres, about half of the normal amount.

The northern parts of Jiangsu Province have also suffered from drought since July, especially the northwestern counties of Xuzhou, Fengxian and Peixian.

Flood Defences Making the Grade
Recent devastating floods around China have focused anxious attention on the Yangzte River, but according to Wang Shucheng, minister of water resources, flood defences along the river are in good shape.

Thanks to the country's heavy investment in flood-control projects since 1998, the thousands of kilometres of levees along the flood-prone Yangzte are already massively reinforced, Wang said.

In fact, authorities do not expect major reinforcement work will be needed along the levees for the next 50 to 100 years.

Following 1998's devastating flooding which claimed 1,562 lives in five provinces along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze, the central government poured 160 billion yuan (US$19.2 billion) into construction of water conservation projects, Wang said.

The investment, excluding money spent on the construction of the mammoth Three Gorges Project, accounts for 70 per cent of China's total input towards all kinds of water-control projects since 1949, when New China was founded.

Most of the government's 160 billion yuan investment for water-control projects was spent on reinforcing or building flood-control infrastructure along China's major rivers, according to Wang.

Most of the funds were raised by the government through issuance of nationwide special public bonds.

For the Yangtze alone, some 29 billion yuan (US$3.4 billion) was earmarked during the 1998-2002 period to consolidate the roughly 3,000-kilometre-long major levees shielding vast areas along the river's middle and lower reaches.

"Such massive investment for water conservancy projects was unprecedented in China's history and the world's history as well,'' Wang said.

Wang said he is confident that "in the next 50 to 100 years, there will be no need for China to launch another large-scale reinforcement of the levees there.''

So far, no major flood-related mishaps have occurred along the main levees of the Yangtze, even though the river has been hit by flood crests as reported by the provinces stretching along its middle reaches, the minister said.

In Central China's Hunan Province, now facing its worst flood threat this year, the 215-kilometre embankment has not been breached despite six flood peaks having passed through. The peaks caused no major damage.

By contrast, 4,150 people were killed across China during 1998's summer floods which swept over China's 29 provinces, causing 255.1 billion yuan's (US$30.7 billion) worth of direct economic damage, affecting more than 22 million hectares of crops and causing more than 6.8 million houses to collapse.

On the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze's main streams, as well as areas around Dongting and Poyang lakes, more than 2.2 million locals were affected during the flooding which inundated 197,000 hectares of farmland following the crumbling of 1,075 embankments.

Although "this year's flood season is almost over, three of its characteristics need to be stressed,'' Wang said.

First, heavy damages were caused by rain-induced mudflows, sluice-gate failures and mountain torrents in a few areas in the provinces of Shaanxi, Fujian, Sichuan and Chongqing Municipality as precipitation reached a record 300 to 400 millimetres in 24 hours.

Second, China's major rivers have remained peaceful without dangerous emergencies reported except the recent high-water levels in some sections of the Yangtze.

Third, North and Northwest China are facing a worsening drought as rainfall in the early period of this year's flood season has not produced enough runoff to Northern China's rivers.


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