Xiaolangdi Reservoir Flows to Fight DroughtThe Xiaolangdi Water Control Project, the largest of its kind still under construction on the Yellow River, has stopped generating electricity in order to flush water into the lower reaches of the river to fight the severe drought in the region.The sluice-lifted Xiaolangdi Reservoir began to let water flow on Thursday, and is expected to send an extra 700 million cubic meters of water into the lower reaches when its water level drops to 195 meters in mid-June from the current 206.3 meters. The Xiaolangdi Project released some 550 million cubic meters of water earlier this spring to supplement the water supply for the lower reaches of the second longest river in China. A severe drought has been spreading in north, east and central China, threatening the summer harvest. It is learned that the along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, the longest in China, the drought has affected at least 2.8 million hectares of crops and caused water shortages among over one million people and some 340,000 head of livestock in central China's Hubei Province, and east China's Anhui and Jiangsu provinces. |
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