All dried-out sections of ancient Chinese canal refilled with water

BEIJING, April 4 (Xinhua) -- All dried-out sections of the ancient Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, a long waterway connecting the northern and southern parts of China, had been refilled with water by Tuesday.

Thanks to a water supply project, the achievement was made for the second time within roughly a century following the first in 2022.

Launched on March 1 this year in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Shandong -- four of the regions the canal flows through in its northern part -- the project directed about 191.21 million cubic meters of water into the canal.

By the end of May this year, China's Ministry of Water Resources plans to divert even more water into the canal, the longest and oldest man-made waterway in the world.

This project aims to improve the ecosystems along the canal.

With a history of more than 2,500 years, the Grand Canal, connecting Beijing and Hangzhou in east China's Zhejiang Province, served as a significant transportation artery in ancient China.

The canal was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in China in 2014.

Due to historical evolution, human activity and climate change, some sections of the canal began to dry up in the first half of the 20th century.