Floods of 98
BEIJING, July 9 (AFP) - A dangerous surge on China's Yangtze river passed the city of Nanjing without major incident, but officials warned Thursday of more perils ahead as the flood season got under way.
Local media showed pictures of fields under several feet of water, and soldiers up to their chest in yellow muddy water, passing sandbags along a human chain to shore up dykes along the Yangtze.
Severe flooding has hit much of central, southern and eastern China as millions of soldiers and local residents scrambled to ready defences for worse flooding to come.
Official statistics amid the chaos have been few and far between, but the death toll on Thursday evening in the southwest province of Sichuan had reached 170, the Xinhua news agency reported. Total property losses were estimated at 2.5 billion yuan (312 million dollars), it said.
Earlier, two people were killed and more than 30 injured when their flat-bottomed boat overturned on the Yangtze near Jiangjin, in Sichuan.
"The incident happened just before dawn, some hours after the surge of flood water that was a metre (three feet) over danger levels had passed without major incident," a local disaster prevention official said.
Chongqing on Wednesday sent 66,000 people armed with 60,000 sandbags and 200 life boats to protect dykes around the city at a torrent of water from recent heavy rains upstream passed through just before midnight.
"The danger from the surge of water has now passed, but water levels are still very high and it is sure that it will not be the last danger of this flood season," the official added.
His fears were echoed nationwide as heavy rains inundated great swathes of central and southern China.
"The worst is far from over," the China Daily quoted officials at the state flood control headquarters as saying. They warned that floods were expected upstream on the Yangtze with more rains throughout the rest of July.
Water levels in many sections of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze remain dangerously high, and were expected to rise again when water from its tributaries reached the main stream.
The death toll from this year's floods is already at least 970, according to compilations from local figures, while last year's inundations only killed a total of 600.
Millions of soldiers and local residents have been mobilised across central, southern and eastern China to shore up crumbling defences along 30,000 kilometres (19,000 miles) of dykes.
In central China's Hunan province alone, some 300,000 livestock have already been killed with 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) of farmland affected around the Dongting lake area, Xinhua news agency reported.
Japan has donated 700,000 dollars in cash and 29.52 million yen (210,000 dollars) in relief materials, the China Daily said.
Medical equipment worth more than 500,000 dollars has arrived from charities in the United States.
Authorities in the southwestern province of Sichuan reported Thursday that 170 people had died in the floods since the start of June.
"From the start of June until July 7, we recorded 170 people dead, 12 missing and 1,750 seriously injured because of the flooding," an official with the Sichuan Disaster Relief Office said.
BEIJING, July 12 (AFP) - The floods which have killed at least 800 people in recent weeks are just the latest chapter in a saga of death and devastation written by China's great rivers over the centuries.
The Yangtze in the south and the Yellow River in the north have alone accounted for millions of deaths, without counting the innumerable victims of their many tributaries and the nation's other watercourses.
The Yellow River has burst its banks more than 1,600 times since 602 BC. It has changed its course 26 times and did not follow its present route till 1855.
These catastrophes were caused by silt, deposits of sand washed down from upstream. The deposits raise by 10 cm (four inches) a year the bed of the river, which is girded by higher and higher dykes.
Along its lower course, the Yellow River is now more than 20 metres (66 feet) above the towns through which it passes.
For century after century the silting of rivers has worsened flooding. For 2,000 years up to the 14th century floods occurred every 18 years on average. For five hundred years the frequency was once every four years for the Yangtze alone, which is less affected by silting than the Yellow River.
In this century, flooding has become virtually an annual event.
In 1938 the rising of the Yellow River killed 890,000 people living along its banks. In 1954, 30,000 died when the Yangtze burst its banks.
The two rivers, although 500 kilometres (312 miles) apart, have often throughout history overflowed simultaneously to swamp the large eastern fertile plain between them. More than 250,000 square kilometres (100,000 square miles) of cropland has been engulfed on these occasions, an area almost half the size of France.
The unpredicability of the two great rivers reflects irregular rainfall. The autumn and winter are traditionally dry with rainfall concentrated in a few short spring and summer months. Near-dry riverbeds swell dramatically as a result.
Last year the lower course of the Yellow River stayed dry for 266 days, a record period caused by a drought and excessive pumping for irrigation.
In imperial times, the emperors built dykes along the rivers but the present regime is putting its faith in giant dams. The Yellow River was diverted last October to build a dam at Xiaolangdi, mainly to control the flow but also to generate electricity.
"The Yellow River is the birthplace of Chinese civilisation but its floods have brought countless disasters to Chinese people," said then-Premier Li Peng, describing the dam as an "important stage" in the taming of the river.
Ten days later, the flow of the Yangtze was interrupted for the construction of the Three Gorges dam, due to be the world's largest hydroelectric scheme when work is completed in 2009.
However the dam, by regulating the river's flow downstream, could worsen silting upstream, Western ecologists predict. They say the erosion at the heart of the silting problem can only be combated by long-term reafforestation.
But mindful of the adage "Whoever tames the Yellow River masters China," the communist rulers have made these projects an act of patriotic faith.
WUSHIMEN, China, July 19 (AFP) - For the 60 households in Wushimen village eking out a living on their meagre plots of land, the floods that swept through China's eastern Jiangxi province were devastating.
The worst flood for 100 years swept away precious belongings, destroyed six houses and swamped cotton and paddy fields.
Chen, a former village party secretary in his fifties, said the villagers had prepared for the flood "like we did for the great flood of 1954 but this time, the waters were twice as deep. We were completely taken unawares."
He said the villagers' cotton crops were destroyed and could not be replanted until next spring. Others said it was too late to plant the autumn rice crop.
"We are living from day to day. If the water is drained away, we will be able to plant some subsistence crop," Chen said.
But villagers said they are spending most of their time and energy cleaning up their flood-ravaged homes, and do not have the time and resources to drain their flooded fields and repair a smashed dyke.
Zhang Chengxiu, 52, still has water swilling around her kitchen, and wears wellington boots as she tramples around her house doing the chores.
More than one dozen provinces have been hit by several weeks of floods and around 140 million people have been affected, according to the most recent government toll.
More than 1,000 people have been killed.
"The government has distributed one month's supply of grain to each villager. After that, we do not know what will happen. Our last resort will be to hire ourselves out as labourers but jobs are scarce to come by," Chen said.
But he said villagers understood they were not the only victims and he said they were not looking for the government to help.
Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, who visited Wushimen on July 4 when the water rose above the danger level, became a local hero after handing out 10,000 yuan -- 13.66 yuan for each villager.
"He is really an excellent official. It is not the amount of money that matters but his gesture showed his sincerity," one villager said.
Yang Si, 73, a refugee at the Goddess of Mercy temple which sheltered 500 villagers at the height of the flood, said Zhu took his time to understand Yang's predicament.
JIUJIANG, China, July 19 (AFP) - Water levels on China's flood-swollen Yangtze River remained dangerously high Sunday, as major cities along its length prepared their defences to face further rain, officials said.
"The water is still one metre above the danger level," said an official with the Flood Prevention and Disaster Relief Centre in Jiujiang, in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangxi.
He said teams of local residents were patrolling the city's dykes.
"It's only the farmers and local residents doing the work now. But we will not stop our work. Our responsibility is still very great," he said.
At least 1,000 people have been killed so far by devastating floods which have swept through twelve provinces in central, southern and eastern China, according to the latest government figures.
Water levels upstream at the central Chinese city of Wuhan rose slightly Sunday, as the city's flood defences were reinforced, officials said.
"We're taking this very seriously. We haven't relaxed our efforts one bit," said a Wuhan flood control official who declined to be named.
More heavy rains forecast up-river in the southwestern province of Sichuan could swell the floodwaters still further, he added.
Meanwhile, millions of people are still coming to terms with the devastation the floods have already caused.
In Wushimen village, Jiangxi province, the worst flood for 100 years swept away precious belongings, destroyed six houses and swamped cotton and paddy fields.
Chen, a former village party secretary in his fifties, said the villagers had prepared for the flood "like we did for the great flood of 1954 but this time, the waters were twice as deep. We were completely taken unawares."
He said the villagers' cotton crops were destroyed and could not be replanted until next spring. Others said it was too late to plant the autumn rice crop.
But villagers said they were spending most of their time and energy cleaning up their flood-ravaged homes, and did not have the time and resources to drain their flooded fields, or to repair their dykes in case of further flooding.
Meanwhile, shipping traffic has been suspended along the Yangtze, and 100,000 ship passengers have had to be evacuated by motor vehicles in difficult terrain in an operation taking 11 days to complete, Xinhua news agency reported.
Jiujiang and Wuhan are among dozens of Chinese cities along the river where heavy defences are being mounted against flooding.
Jiujiang's 151.9 kilometres (94.2 miles) of dykes along the river protect 1.92 million people, farmland, 82 large and medium-sized state enterprises, three rail links and two important highways.
Official media on Saturday blamed poor preparations by local officials for the catastrophic damage wrought by the flooding.
More than a dozen provinces have been hit by floods and around 140 million people have been affected, according to the most recent government toll.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has called for international assistance for the hundreds of thousands left destitute by the floods in the southern province of Guangxi.
Food, medicine and water purification tablets were urgently needed in the worst-affected areas.
Xinhua news agency reported an increase in cholera cases in southern China, and Medicins Sans Frontieres has warned that intestinal diseases may spread if people have no access to clean drinking water.
This year's unusually early and violent rainy season has caused total flood-related economic losses of more than 84 billion yuan (10 billion dollars) so far, according to China's civil affairs ministry.
Rising waters have destroyed some 2.9 million houses and ruined nine million hectares (22.3 million acres) of crops.
HUKOU, China, July 20 (AFP) - Flood-stricken villagers trapped in their homes for two weeks in eastern Jiangxi province on Monday accused corrupt officials of siphoning off urgently needed relief funds.
About 2,000 people are stranded upstairs in their two-storey homes as two-metre deep flood waters swirl through Hukou village.
"We have not received one cent. All we have received is six jin (three kilograms, 6.6 pounds) of rice for every household -- that's not even enough to feed a child," Li, a 63-year-old cotton grower, said.
"We have a good government. We know that the government has allocated relief funds but by the time it passes through each level of officials, we peasants get nothing," he said from his boat.
Another villager also surnamed Li said she had heard daily television reports that the government had sent relief funds to flood-hit areas.
"It is all lies. I don't believe it because I haven't seen the money," the 43-year-old woman said. "The officials live a good life but we ordinary people are really pitiful."
While the two Lis were speaking to reporters, a young Communist Party cadre chastised them for saying the villagers were drinking flood water.
Since floods breached a dike two weeks ago the only access the Hukou villagers have had with the outside world has been by boat.
They have been living without electricity, but have been given 500 grams (1.1 pounds) of salt, two boxes of matches and tablets for sterilising drinking water.
Late Monday the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies announced it was launching an international appeal for help an estimated one million flood victims in China. According to official figures at least 1,000 people have died.
The organisation said it was seeking 6.7 million Swiss francs (4.45 million US) to provide rice, wheat, medicine and water purification tablets.
"The flooding is the worst in living memory in many areas. Houses and personal food stocks were washed away by torrents of water," the organisation said in a statement.
"Crops meant to feed the families through the summer were just ready for harvesting when the floods destroyed them. People who managed to flee the rising waters are now living in make-shift shelters with little food or clean water."
Some villagers in Hukou, where the Yangtze river flows into Poyang lake, said they had been fishing in the river for food and getting drinking water there, saying it was cleaner than flood waters covering the cotton field.
Others paddled about in tubs and said they made do with any water.
"Those with boats try to catch fish to survive but there is not a lot of fish in these waters," the elder Li said.
"Those with no boats will just have to put up with hunger," he said from his leaky boat as grandchildren on board helped to bail out water.
Li said the villagers did not want money from the government but wanted relief funds properly used to ensure there would not be any more devastation.
"We want the government to spend money to strengthen the dike so that this kind of flooding will not happen again," he said.
Officials warned of further flooding in the area as water levels on the Yangtze in the central city of Wuhan, upstream of Hukou, continued to rise Monday.
Shipping on a stretch of the Yangtze near the huge Three Gorges dam project has been suspended, and 132,000 ship and train passengers left stranded by the floods have been evacuated in recent days, the official Xinhua news agency said.
The ban on shipping was announced last week along a water diversion canal, one of two navigation channels built after the river was blocked in November for construction of the massive dam.
The Three Gorges Dam is to become the world's largest hydroelectric dam once work has been completed in 2009. Workers last November diverted the Yangtze river around the construction site by completing a temporary coffer-dam.
Wuhan is one of dozens of Chinese cities along the river where heavy defences are being mounted against the flooding.
The floods have caused devastation across twelve provinces, affecting around 140 million people and causing damage estimated at more than 84 billion yuan (10 billion dollars), according to China's civil affairs ministry.
WUHAN, China, July 21 (AFP) - Flood control officials in the central Chinese port of Wuhan have launched all night vigils on the city dyke as heavy rains swell water levels on the Yangtze river, officials said Tuesday.
"The water level has risen to 27.42 meters at 8:00 a.m. (0000 GMT). It is still quite a way below the danger level of 28.28 meters but we didn't sleep the whole of last night," an official at the Wuhan flood control center said.
The level measured 27.35 meters at 2:00 p.m. (0600 GMT) Monday.
Severe flooding has wreaked havoc across 12 of China's central, southern and eastern provinces and killed more than 1,000 people since early May, according to the latest government toll.
Around 140 million people have been affected, and the damage has been estimated at more than 84 billion yuan (10 billion dollars), according to China's civil affairs ministry.
On Monday the International Committee of the Red Cross launched an appeal for 4.5 million dollars in order to buy rice, wheat, medication, and water purification tablets.
"The flooding is the worst in living memory in many areas. Houses and personal food stocks were washed away by torrents of water," the organisation said in a statement.
"Crops meant to feed the families through the summer were just ready for harvesting when the floods destroyed them. People who managed to flee the rising waters are now living in make-shift shelters with little food or clean water."
"The situation in Wuhan is still okay now but if it rains heavily both up and down river, we will have big problems," the flood control official said.
An official at the Wuhan meteorological buro said 145.5 mm (six inches) of rain fell Monday night.
"It will continue to rain through tomorrow afternoon. It's really both up river and down river," he said.
The rate of water flow through China's gargantuan Three Gorges Dam project upstream from Wuhan had been unprecedented in recent days, an official at the dam said Tuesday.
"It's not that the rate has never been this fast, just that it's never been sustained at the present rate for such a long time before," a spokesman for the project told AFP by telephone.
Water was flowing through the area at a rate of 47,000 cubic metres (1.64 million cubic feet) per second on Tuesday, he said, compared with a rate of more than 50,000 cubic metres (1.75 million cubic feet) last week, when a ban on shipping along that stretch of the river was announced.
While the dam was designed to handle flow rates of up to 72,300 cubic metres (2.53 million cubic feet) per second, the design had been given a good testing in the past two weeks and no problems had been found, he said.
"I don't think we've had water flowing at these sorts of rates for many many years," he said, adding that heavy rains in the area over the past two days had eased on Tuesday.
Wuhan, a sprawling conurbation of three population centres at the heart of China, would not face very serious flooding problems because the water level was still not very high, but there might be problems in areas to the north and south of the city, the Wuhan official said.
Wuhan is one of dozen of Chinese cities along the river where heavy defences are being mounted against flooding.
Overnight rain flooded several roads in the city centre, slowing traffic to a crawl.
The flood control center official said the whole city, which now has a population of seven million, was last flooded when the water level breached the dyke in 1931 reaching 28.28 meters.
"That was before the (1949) liberation (by the communists). Since then we have had water levels reaching 29.73 meters in 1954 but the dyke held because defences had been strengthened," he said.
BEIJING, July 23 (AFP) - The waters of China's Yangtze river breached danger levels Thursday, amid anxiety that dykes in the central city of Wuhan would burst, as a further 150 deaths were reported from a catastrophic summer of floods.
Torrents of water surged through the city in a peak flood tide, as the river, swollen by days of pounding rain, reached 1.45 metres (4.8 feet) above emergency levels.
No damage was reported but there were fears the flood tide could threaten the commercial heart of the city of seven million people and further test drains which have already spewed floodwaters into roads, shops and homes.
Severe flooding in mainly southern and central China has claimed around 1000 lives since May, and more heavy rain is forecast.
Wuhan, like many areas along the Yangtze, has been been pounded by days of torrential rain, and on Tuesday suffered its worst storm on record.
As the floodwaters gushed through the city, 150 more deaths were reported elsewhere in China, adding to an official toll of at least 1,000.
Chinese press reports said another 113 people had been killed and 69 were missing after floods in the northwestern Shaanxi province.
A total of 2,625 people were injured and 90,000 were made homeless between July 4 and 20, the official China Daily said.
In addition, 22,000 homes were destroyed along with more than two thousand hectares of agricultural land. The losses are expected to cost around 1.2 billion yuan, (145 million dollars), the report said.
Meanwhile, mudslides in the southwestern province of Yunnan have killed 37 people and injured 178, the Chongqing Evening News reported.
Torrential rains dumped 378 milimetres (15 inches) of rain on Yiliang Country between July 12 and 13, affecting 320,000 people in 101 villages and 18 towns, the paper said.
More than 1,000 people have died so far this year from floods in China, according to official figures published last week. In 1997, 600 people were killed and in 1996 a murderous cycle of floods claimed 3,000 lives.
Southern Shaanxi, which has suffered its heaviest rains for 40 years, has been hit by electricity and telephone failures and a number of major roads have been cut.
Thousands of soldiers have been mobilised in a massive aid and rescue effort and the province has freed eight million yuan (900,000 dollars in emergency aid.
More heavy rains are expected to hit the region until early August, the paper said.
Water levels were also rising, by 50 milimetres an hour, on the Changhe River at Jingdezhen city in Jiangxi Province, the Xinhua news agency reported.
Heavy rains now starting to reach northern China have heightened the risk of floods in the Yellow River, which has reaped the most deadly toll in floods of all the mighty Chinese rivers.
But despite the dire situation in Shaanxi, it is the southern half of China which has suffered most from the floods which first appeared at the beginning of May.
Dozens of towns and cities along the banks of the Yangtze were also fearful of renewed floods, prompting President Jiang Zemin to issue an emergency message Wednesday.
Cities and towns like Wuhan which nestle in the Yangtze river basin are most at risk.
The volume of the Yangtze continued to rise Thursday, to 63.5 cubic metres a second compared to 63.4 cubic metres the day before.
While one peak of floodwater had passed, another was accumulating following days of torrential rains in the upper reaches of the Yangtze and its tributaries.
China has blamed poor preparation by local officials for the devastation across 12 provinces in recent weeks. Some villagers have accused local officials of siphoning off funds intended for the relief effort.
JIUJIANG, China, July 27 (AFP) - China's eastern Jiangxi province has declared a state of emergency after a dyke along the Yangtze river breached for the first time in more than four decades, officials said Monday.
Authorities here declared the emergency late Sunday enabling them to requisition all materials and able-bodied men to strengthen defences against flood waters which have risen to historic levels.
"We are in an emergency situation. All materials can be requistioned for flood control," a flood control official told AFP.
The official said 10,000 cadres have been deployed to patrol one dyke separating the Yangtze river from the Saicheng Lake on a vigil which started three days ago when flood waters reached 19.5 metres (64 feet).
If swollen river waters burst through the dyke it will affect the 240,000 people living behind it as well as 24,000 hectares (59,000 acres) of agricultural land, said Yong An village party secretary Nie Zhieinp.
Some 100 metres (330 feet) of dykes on Saicheng Lake near Jiujiang's western outskirts had already seen large-scale erosion under the onslaught.
More than four million officials, soldiers and civilians Monday battled the worst Yangtze river flooding since 1954 along the length of the river.
JIUJIANG, China, July 28 (AFP) - The highest floodwaters in four decades bore down Tuesday on the Chinese cities of Wuhan and Jiujiang as four million people, some using just their bare hands, fought to strengthen battered Yangtze river defences.
Around one million troops have joined the army of people battling to reinforce and keep watch over levees severely strained by the gush of record flood levels.
Summer floods have killed at least 1,168 people and the official media said the death toll from natural disasters this year had risen to 2,500.
As the third flood peak of the year hit Wuhan, water levels rose to 28.90 metres (95.4 feet), well above the danger line of 28.28 metres.
"The dykes seem to be holding so far," a flood prevention official said.
But he refused to comment on whether the authorities would divert water into the countryside to protect the industrial city's seven million people. The possibility of such a last-resort move had been raised by officials.
Millions of residents, soldiers and flood prevention workers are relying on little more than bags of earth and their own sweat to protect their homes.
The Xinhua news agency said villagers had been posted every 10 meters on the main embankment of the Yangtze to keep a close watch over flooding.
Even minor defects in dykes could spell disaster for heavily populated areas in Hunan, Hubei and Jiangxi provinces.
Late Tuesday authorities launched an urgent appeal to reinforce defences around the country's largest city and economic hub Shanghai, at the mouth of the Yangtze. Several streets have already been flooded along with 2,600 homes.
The last time the river flooded this badly was in 1954, when 30,000 people were killed, the official Xinhua news agency said.
In Enping city in south China's Guangdong Province, a party committee sacked an official who fled the city in a car with his family "at a time when local flood control work had reached its most frantic," Xinhua said.
Another official who fled with him was given a "serious party disciplinary warning," it added.
Floods across southern China have already killed at least 1,168 people, according to official reports -- nearly double the number who perished in flooding last year.
According to an International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies report released Tuesday, the floods have left 804,000 people homeless and affected 77.8 million so far.
In Jiujiang, the Yangtze rose 13 centimetres in less than 24 hours to hit 22.85 meters at 4:00 p.m. (0800 GMT), more than three metres above danger level, a flood control officer told AFP.
"The water level is still rising but at a slower rate," the officer said.
A brigade of military police laboured through the night to repair a dyke in danger of crumbling and to let the river into the already swollen Saicheng Lake.
Xinhua reported a senior party member in Jiujiang County was given a party disciplinary warning along with three other people and one person was sacked.
It said officials from the city, including the mayor, had found embankments along the Saicheng Lake unmanned during a late night inspection on July 25, with water spilling over in areas.
The five officials were those responsible for flood control efforts.
One 59-year-old resident said 3,000 people in the area had virtually lived on the dyke in the past month.
"We have moved valuable belongings from our homes but we must not let our spirit be moved. Once we lose our spirit, the dyke will be lost," he said.
Officials said 240,000 people, more than 24,000 hectares (59,280 acres) of farmland and the Beijing-Hong Kong railway would be hit if the Saicheng Lake dyke was breached.
Jiangxi, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces have all declared a state of emergency, allowing authorities to commandeer vehicles and supplies.
Nearly 200,000 people have already been evacuated to safer ground in Hunan province, Xinhua said. The air force had evacuated 300,000 people from flooded areas over the past two days.
The Yangtze basin holds around one-third of China's 1.22 billion population and accounts for 40 percent of its industrial and agricultural output.
TONGLING, China, July 31 (AFP) - Dykes along China's Yangtze River began collapsing Friday as officials warned the month-long fight against the worst flooding in four decades had stretched defences to breaking point.
"Water levels are still high, and people and materials have been stretched to breaking point after the month-long battle against the flood," vice-premier Wen Jiabao told troops and officials during a tour of flood defences.
"Keep your spirits up," he added. "You have won a great victory."
As Wen spoke, "seemingly endless" rainfall had caused dykes in the central Chinese province of Hubei to crumble in hundreds of places, Xinhua news agency reported.
Millions of peasants, officials and volunteers from the city were camping out in makeshift shacks on the dykes watching for leaks, as soldiers frantically sandbagged potential weak spots.
In Jiujiang in eastern Jiangxi province, Saicheng Lake burst its banks despite the efforts of millions of people and engulfed a wide area of farmland, an official told AFP.
"We have no statistics yet of the scale of flooding. All hands are on the dyke trying to save the situation," the Jiujiang city flood control officer said.
He said there were also no figures immediately available on the number of victims and flooded homes, but the lake waters had yet to reach a stage of threatening the city.
The Yangtze river level has risen one centimeter (0.4 inches) in six hours to 22.97 metres (75.8 feet) as of 2:00 p.m. (0600 GMT) as the third flood crest passed, but the dyke held despite leaks in various places.
"There are turbulences in the river but the Yangtse dyke is still holding. There are leakages but we will fight to death to save the dyke," the flood control officer said.
"We have people taking charge of every kilometre (0.6 mile) of the dyke, equiped with technical and engineering resources," the officer said.
Heavy rains continued to drench cities further down the Yangtze on Friday, in Hunan and Anhui provinces, causing flooding in city streets as drainage was overwhelmed.
"The water level on the river has actually gone down, but we're still repairing dykes and managing flooding around the city. Most of it is caused by the extra rainwater having nowhere to go," said a flood control official in Jingdezhen, a city on a Yangtze tributary in eastern Jiangxi province.
Zhang Zhitong, deputy head of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief headquarters said Thursday the river's water levels were expected to remain "dangerously high for a fairly long period of time and the water-logged dykes could give way any time."
He told Xinhua the levels on the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze would remain high because of prolonged rainfall and accumulated sediment.
Further downriver in Anhui, a foreign ministry officer in Hefei, the provincial capital, said some 300,000 people were mobilised to defend dykes, mainly at Anqing, which would be first hit by the third flood crest.
"The situation is quite serious. The water level is rising even though it has stopped raining," she said, adding that several breaches in the dyke in Anqing overnight had been repaired.
In Nanjing, capital of eastern Jiangsu province, a flood control officer said the province was on alert but in no danger because of work over the winter and spring to strengthen dykes.
"So far there have been no breaches, no victims and no flooding," he said.
All state council ministries have been ordered to contribute to the flood control campaign. Large quantitites of food aid and funds have been sent to the flood hit areas, officials said, as fears were raised of an outbreak of diseases in the region.
There was an increased risk of cholera, malaria, diarrhoea and hepatitis epidemics in central Hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, the health ministry said.
It issued an emergency circular calling on all provincial health departments to prepare drugs and medical facilities to combat outbreaks.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRCRCS) has warned that drinking water in the affected areas -- which estimates say cover a population of at least 100 million people -- has been made unsafe, as rising waters inundate local sewage systems.
Floods across southern China this year have already killed more than 1,200 people, official reports said -- nearly double the number to perish during last year's summer flooding.
The toll does not include loss of life in the last week of flooding along the Yangtze, at its highest level since 1954, when 30,000 people were killed and more than 10 million affected.
The Yangtze basin is home to about one-third of China's 1.22 billion people and accounts for 40 percent of industrial and agricultural output.
JIUJIANG, China, Aug 3 (AFP) - China on Monday admitted it had begun blowing up dikes along the Yangtze river to flood the countryside in a bid to prevent major cities being engulfed by the river.In Xianning, central Hubei province, "11 small dikes were dynamited to divert floodwaters and lower the water level in the main stream of the Yangtze river," the official Xinhua news agency said.
Some 32,511 local residents had to be evacuated, the report said.
Nearly 10,000 homes and 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) of farmland were submerged following the move, which caused an estimated 400,000 yuan (48,000 dollars) in damages, it said.
An expert was quoted as justifying the dike-blasting as a damage-control measure.
"The loss will be less if we divert floods in a planned way than when the situation becomes an emergency," said Wu Daoxi, an official with the Yangtze River Flood Control Commission.
The strategy aimed to protect Wuhan -- a major industrial city with a population of seven million that has been threatened for weeks by record high waters on China's longest river, the report said.
Reports to date had said authorities were merely prepared to blow up dikes but only as a last resort to save key industrial cities or important infrastructure.
One expert told the official China Daily that rising water levels on the Yangtze could be cut by at least 0.5 metres (1.7 feet) by discharging water at 40 key points in dikes upriver from Wuhan.
Residents of seven of the 40 "flood diversion areas" have already been evacuated, he told the newspaper's Hong Kong edition.
Some five million people and a total of 12,000 square kilometres (4,800 square miles) would be affected if the full-scale flood diversion plan were carried out.
But the expert said local officials have the final say in such plans and are reluctant to give the green light because of a lack of funds to compensate those affected.
Flooding along the Yangtze -- the worst since 1954, when 33,000 died -- had already left millions homeless, and many of these evacuees are living in poor health conditions atop dikes, an international Red Cross official told AFP.
Near Dongting lake in Hunan, Arne Jacobsen said he saw "kilometre after kilometre" of people on dikes, some 300,000 in all.
Some have been living without proper shelter in inclement weather including temperature of up to 36 degrees (97 degrees Fahrenheit) for more than 45 days, said Jacobsen, the China representative for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
"The situation is being described as a lot of people getting sick from water, food and exposure," he said after returning from a tour of Hubei and Hunan provinces.
While the evacuees have adequate food supplies and water purification, many are suffering from skin diseases, eye infections and minor stomach ailments, he said, adding that Chinese health officials had been effective at preventing epidemic outbreaks.
Jacobsen estimated that 51 million people in the two provinces -- some 40 percent of their population -- had been affected by the floods.
Yangtze water levels could remain high for some time, however.
The expert told the China Daily only a rainfall stoppage of 10 days or more in upstream areas would allow water levels to recede in the middle reaches.
But the newspaper said it had been raining since Saturday along the Minjiang river, an upstream tributary, and in the area of the Three Gorges Dam, whose construction has been hampered by onrushing waters.
Six or seven typhoons could hit China in the next three months, dumping additional rainfall on the flood-hit regions, meteorologists warned in a Xinhua report.
Flooding across southern China since the start of May killed at least 1,200 people, according to official reports issued before the most severe wave of Yangtze flooding that began July 25.
BEIJING (AP) -- Waterlogged levees along China's flood-swollen Yangtze River have started to collapse, wreaking death and destruction on a massive scale, state media said Tuesday.
Torrential rains in southwest Sichuan province also have triggered flooding that killed at least 20 people, pushing the known death toll from floods caused by unusually heavy and early summer rains this year to 1,288.
With a tropical storm and another flood tide expected, the threat mounted of further breaches along the already weakened levees that protect millions of people and rich farmland from the Yangtze, the world's third-longest river.
Main Yangtze dikes remain intact but secondary levees were breached in at least two counties and a city in central China's Hubei province, ``causing huge loss of life and property,'' the official China Youth Daily reported.
The newspaper gave no casualty figures. But a human rights group said 150 soldiers and hundreds of villagers were swept away when a levee suddenly collapsed Saturday in Hubei's Jiayu County, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) upriver from the industrial center of Wuhan.
As of Monday, the bodies of nine soldiers had been recovered, the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said. The Hong Kong-based group said more than 1,000 people were believed missing.
Local officials have barred foreign journalists from visiting the worst flood areas, and state-controlled media tend to provide delayed or conflicting accounts and downplay casualties.
The official newspaper Yangcheng Evening News said some 400 soldiers were swept away when the levee that had been protecting some 56,000 people in two towns collapsed. Soldiers and police pulled nearly 20,000 people from the water, the newspaper said.
In a bid to lower the Yangtze's waters, Hubei authorities abandoned 11 small dikes to divert floodwaters, Xinhua said. The strategy caused 400 million yuan (dlrs 48 million) in flood damage, but helped protect Wuhan city, it said.
More than 100,000 people lost their homes when a levee burst in Anxiang, in neighboring Hunan province, on July 24, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said. Victims were living in tents, ``without adequate food and drinking water,'' Xinhua said.
In all, the Yangtze was threatening to burst its embankments in 3,200 places, and 1,800 of these possible breaches were ``major,'' Xinhua said.
``The flood control situation along the Yangtze remains extremely serious and will remain so for the foreseeable future,'' it reported.
Millions of soldiers and civilians have been manning the dikes, watching for signs of collapse and plugging leaks, as waters on the Yangtze reached levels unseen since floods in 1954 killed more than 30,000 people.
Aside from killing 20 people, the floods in Sichuan province in recent days also injured 370 people and left two others missing, Xinhua said. Torrential rains triggered landslides and caused waters on the Yangtze's upper reaches and its main tributaries to reach danger levels, it said.
A flood peak, the fourth this year, was forming on the upper reaches of the 6,300-kilometer- (3,900-mile-) long river, the China Youth Daily said.
A tropical storm also was expected to hit land in southeast China in the next two days, bringing strong winds and heavy rains that could complicate flood control efforts.
BEIJING, Aug 4 (AFP) - A burst dyke on China's flood-swollen Yangtze river unleashed a vicious torrent which swept hundreds of soldiers and civilians to their deaths, sources said Tuesday.
The report came as heavy rains in the river's upper reaches formed a new flood peak and police reported looting, robbery and theft were all on the rise as people took advantage of the chaos.
The dyke ruptured in the Jiayu district of Hubei province, some 70 kilometres (43 miles) from the city of Wuhan, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said.
Group spokesman Frank Lu quoted sources in Wuhan as saying the torrent from the rupture "surprised" 150 soldiers patrolling the dyke and residents of Paizhou and Hezhen counties, drowning hundreds of people.
This year's floods in the Yangtze river basin have been the worst since 1954, when 33,000 people died. More than 1,200 people have already been reported killed in flooding across southern China this summer.
The Chinese authorities said Monday they had begun blowing up dykes to flood countryside areas in a bid to stop flooding in key cities.
"It can't yet be determined whether the dyke bursts resulted from the blowing up of the dykes," said Lu.
The deluge was large enough to drop the Yangtze's water levels at Wuhan by nearly 10 centimetres (four inches), he said.
An official newspaper in Guangzhou confirmed that a serious dyke burst occurred but provided no details of casualties.
The Yangcheng Evening News said a 700-metre (yard) wide hole erupted in the dyke -- a secondary defence set back from the main levee on the Yangtze's bank.
The report said officials rescued 20,000 people from the torrent.
It said a leak was detected before the accident, and that 300 soldiers dispatched to the scene arrived too late.
Authorities had already evacuated 10,000 people from the area, but the two counties are home to more than 560,000 people. The dyke burst flooded 100 square kilometres (40 square miles), the newspaper said.
An official with the flood-control bureau in Jiayu contacted by telephone said the dyke rupture occurred but that only one soldier died.
Adding to the misery of flood victims police Tuesday said gangs of looters had started preying on homes left unprotected.
"Cases such as looting, robbery and stealing are on the rise, as troublemakers are taking advantage of the severe flooding," Li Weihe, director of the Public Security Bureau of Anxiang County in Hunan province told the Xinhua news agency.
"In the beginning of the flooding, when night fell some hooligans took boats to get things out of the water -- some even went into rooms to plunder," he said.
Between July 26 and 30, six groups of more than 30 thieves were arrested, Li added, saying the situation had improved.
Weather reports pointed to no relief from the flooding -- a new flood peak was building in the Yangtze's upper reaches and a tropical storm was approaching.
An official with Beijing's Central Meteorological Observatory told AFP that heavy rains since Sunday in southwestern Sichuan province had created a new flood crest that would hit central provinces in the coming days.
But he said the flood crest would not be as severe as the summer's third, which last week pushed waters along half the Yangtze to record levels and caused the worst flooding since 1954.
A strong tropical storm expected to dump even more rain was due to hit the southeastern coastline late Tuesday or early Wednesday, state radio reported.
The force 11 storm could yet turn into a typhoon -- the category reserved for storm systems at force 12 or higher, the observatory official said.
Waters along the Yangtze also continued to rise at key locations, officials told AFP.
At Wuhan, the Yangtze rose two centimetres 29.07 metres (95.9 feet) above the riverbed.
Xinhua reported dykes in the Yangtze basin are in danger of giving way in 3,200 locations, 1,800 of which would cause "major ruptures."
A flood-control official in Hubei's Xianning county also confirmed reports dynamite had been used to divert Yangtze floodwaters.
Xinhua reported Monday "11 small dykes were dynamited" in the county.
Nearly 10,000 homes and 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) of farmland were submerged following the move, it said, adding some 32,511 local residents had to be evacuated.
Similar measures -- also aimed at protecting Wuhan's seven million residents -- have been carried out in the area of Dongting Lake and along the Jingjiang, an tributary of the Yangtze, Xinhua said.
ANXIANG, China, Aug 6 (AFP) - Almost two weeks after a dyke on the nearby Dongting lake burst, residents of Anxiang in the southern province of Hunan are unsure how many people still missing from their village have died.
"Many people are still missing and we presume they are dead. They are mostly children and the elderly because all able hands were on the dyke," a taxi-driver said.
The village looks like a war zone, houses ripped apart, power cables strewn on the streets, bags of harvested rice used in a vain attempt to hold back the waters now soaked and useless in the sun.
Listless villagers wander aimlessly in the 37 degree Celsius (100 Fahrenheit) heat.
Most were either sleeping, watching television or working when a dyke on nearby Dongting Lake, fed by the flood-swollen Yangtze River, burst two weeks ago, blasting a 120-metre (400 foot) gap in the levee.
Soldiers from the People's Liberation Army (PLA) have been working alongside villagers to repair the dyke.
The villagers in Anxiang County and residents of nearby Changde city think several thousand people may have died, but no official toll has been released.
At least 1,200 people have died so far in flooding across China, according to official counts, but that figure was given before the the worst flooding since 1954 hit the Yangtze River basin in late July.
Local schoolteacher Yang Lirong, her house under two metres (6.6 feet) of water, said she had gone to bed early the night the dyke burst.
"I was sleeping already at 9 o'clock when my husband who was watching television came to wake me up. Some neighbours had called out 'Teacher Yang, Teacher Yang, the floodwaters are coming from behind'," she said.
Yang said the electricity failed and the household of five, including her sick father-in-law, waited in the dark as the water rose.
"The water was rising very fast. In two hours it reached chest level on the second floor. There was nothing we could do. We were trembling with fear," she said.
"All around, everybody was crying 'help, help'," she said. "We heard the sound of houses collapsing. It sounded like thunder."
While they waited for rescue, the family salvaged what they could, moving furniture and clothes higher up the three-storey house.
Yang said she and 120 others who had crowded the rooftops were finally carried to safety by PLA soldiers.
Among the victims now lodging with Yang is Xiao, a 22 year-old fish farmer, whose father has lost his mind, the family's savings of 30,000 yuan (3,600 dollars) washed away by the flood.
"He was preparing for my marriage this year. We have nothing now. The loss is too much for him to bear," Xiao said.
BEIJING, Aug 6 (AFP) - A dyke burst close to the Yangtze river left 19 soldiers missing but the final toll has yet to be determined, the official China Daily reported Thursday.
The dyke burst Saturday in Jiayu, Hebei province, about 70 kilometres (40 miles) upstream from the city of Wuhan.
The soldiers had been reinforcing embankments along the flood-swollen river at the time of the accident.
Dissident sources said at least 150 soldiers and a large number of civilians were killed when the dyke burst, while Chinese authorities maintained only one soldier died.
The English-language newspaper quoted a Hubei provincial flood-control official as saying the total number of casualties was "under investigation."
The Hubei official said 2,000 soldiers and police had been mobilised, with 150 boats and three helicopters, to rescue 53,000 stranded residents.
About 100 square kilometres (40 square miles) were flooded due to the breach, the China Daily quoted an expert as saying.
At least 138 people have been killed in Hubei, with 187,000 injured taken ill, during the summer floods that have claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people in southern China.
BEIJING, Aug 6 (AFP) - Heavy rains in northeastern China have caused heavy flooding on the Nenjiang River, Xinhua news agency said Thursday.
The water level on the river at Gannan in Heilongjiang province rose to 169.88 metres (560 feet) above the riverbed Thursday, three centimetres (1.2 inches) above the safety level, the agency reported.
It said waters were also rising on the northeastern Songhuajiang River, surpassing the danger line by 1.04 metres (3.4 feet).
Chinese officials have warned northern provinces to prepare for heavy rains and flooding as rains spread north from the Yangtze River basin, scene of the worst flooding since 1954.
More than 2,000 people have been killed so far in the flooding, according to the latest official toll on Thursday.
BEIJING, Aug 6 (AFP) - At least 2,000 people have been killed and 13.8 million forced out of their homes in the worst summer floods to hit the Yangtze River basin since 1954, the government said Thursday.
"Seasonal floods, accompanied by landslides and mud-flows have claimed a relatively heavy loss of lives and brought enormous economic losses to China," Civil Affairs Vice Minister Fan Baojun told a media briefing.
Vice-minister of Water Resources Zhou Wenzhi added "more than 2,000 people have been killed".
The floods have affected 240 million people, one-fifth of China's 1.22 billion population, and 5.6 million homes have been destroyed.
More than two million people have joined the frantic efforts to shore up battered flood defences.
Around 90 percent of the deaths were caused by floodwaters, landslides and mudflows, and the rest by connected mishaps such as capsizes, electrocution and road accidents, Zhou said.
The death toll was up sharply from the 1,200 cited by the civil affairs ministry on July 28 -- before the flooding washed down the heavily populated Yangtze river basin.
A total of 4.8 million hectares (11.9 million acres) of crops had been destroyed and 21.5 million hectares of farmland affected, Fan said.
The official Xinhua news agency quoted economists as saying the flooding could shave half a percentage point off China's slowing economic growth this year.
Cities along the Yangtze braced for a new flood surge Thursday, with the central province of Hubei declaring a state of emergency.
The province launched the measure to combat the river's fourth flood peak this year -- whipped up by pounding rains this week up river in Sichuan province, Xinhua said.
More than 30,000 people in Yichang city in Hubei province have been organized to guard the dyke round the clock, Xinhua said.
The authorities can now commandeer all available vehicles, resources and communications facilities to deal with the flood threat.
The flood surge passed the massive Three Gorges Dam early Thursday, and was expected to hit the kingpin of China's Yangtze flood plain defences, the Jinjiang dyke in Hubei province, Zhao Chunming, an official at the flood control and drought relief headquarters, told reporters.
The authorities had destroyed several secondary dykes in areas around the Dongting Lake to relieve straining water levels, allowing surrounding farmland to be flooded, Zhao said.
"We may have to consider diverting some of the floodwaters if pressure on the Jinjiang dyke gets too great, but for the moment we're confident that it can withstand the fourth flood crest now on the way," he said.
The Jinjiang dyke, which had problems with leaky foundations in the past, is crucial for the protection of the Hanjiang floodplain, which lies between Jinjiang and the central industrial city of Wuhan.
Some Western analysts have said there is a possibility of catastrophic flooding across the plain should the Jinjiang dyke fail, and the Yangtze could even change course and rush headlong into Wuhan.
So far none of the major dykes along the Yangtze main stream has failed.
Water levels at high dykes protecting Wuhan's seven million people dropped one centimetre overnight to a still-critical 29.10 metres (96 feet) above the riverbed.
Xinhua said central authorities sent telegrams to party committees and local governments in all provinces and military command areas to praise them for organizing soldiers and civilians in helping to control the floods.
A string of reports has emerged of burst dykes on tributaries and lakes which drain into the Yangtze, but the authorities have concealed the extent of casualties.
Xinhua said Tuesday that dykes at 3,581 points along the Yangtze basin are in danger of giving way, 1,800 of which would cause "major ruptures."
In northeastern China, heavy rains have caused heavy flooding on the Nenjiang River, Xinhua said Thursday.
Chinese officials have warned northern provinces to prepare for heavy rains and flooding as rains spread north from the Yangtze River basin.
Meteorologists said Typhoon Otto which hit eastern China on Wednesday will not worsen flooding, but warned that abnormally heavy rains would continue to hit most of China throughout August, as well as up to six tropical storms.
BEIJING (AP)(8-7-98) -- China began evacuating more than 300,000 people today from land along the raging Yangtze River that could be deliberately flooded in a desperate bid to safeguard areas downstream.
With the Yangtze at record levels and threatening to rise higher, officials were preparing to divert floodwaters along a section of the 3,900-mile-long river described as the most treacherous.
More than 2,000 people have died in summer floods that began in June. The death toll continues to rise as reports are received from flooded areas.
It was unclear when a decision would be made on whether to intentionally flood towns and villages in the Yangtze's Jingjiang section in central Hubei province. Such a decision would require the approval of China's State Council, or Cabinet.
``The worst moment of the year's flood control efforts is probably coming,'' the newspaper China Daily quoted unidentified Yangtze River officials as saying.
The crisis was precipitated by a surge of floodwaters headed down river toward the Jingjiang dikes today. Officials fear the flood tide -- the river's fourth this year -- could cause sodden levees weakened by weeks of rain and floods to collapse.
The last time the Yangtze was this high was in 1954, during floods that forced officials to divert water three times. More than 30,000 people died in the flooding that year.
More than 500,000 people live in the area south of Shashi in Hubei province that could be flooded. At least 300,000 were already being moved out, said an official at Hubei's Anti-Flood Office. The remainder live on high ground and are safe, said the official, who refused to give his name.
Officials have ``many other'' flood control options that could be used before diverting the river, he said. He refused to say what they were.
Officials first disclosed that they were considering opening the Yangtze's levees at a government news conference Thursday.
``The possibility of flood diversion cannot be discounted,'' said Zhao Chunming, a deputy director at the state flood control headquarters. ``Preparations have already been made.''
``We will try our best not to divert water unless it is absolutely necessary,'' he added.
Other officials at the news conference were more hopeful.
``According to the situation now, it doesn't look like we need to divert water,'' said Zhou Wenzhi, a vice minister of water resources.
Main Yangtze dikes have held firm, but some secondary levees have already collapsed, inundating swaths of farmland. Some were deliberately abandoned to take the pressure off major levees, Zhao said. Other secondary dikes could also be abandoned if main Yangzte dikes are endangered.
Hubei, among the worst-hit provinces, declared a state of emergency Thursday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. With water levels expected to rise, provincial authorities issued an order to local residents to help safeguard major cities and levees.
Flooding has also caused serious damage in northeastern China, in central Shaanxi province, and in southern Guangdong and Guangxi.
Japan, which donated $900,000 in assistance to China last month, will send an additional $842,000 in aid and equipment, the Japanese Foreign Minister announced today.
Meanwhile, in South Korea, landslides and flooding triggered by torrential rains have killed 183 people and left 85 missing since last weekend.