More than 1 million civilians and soldiers in Jiangxi, Anhui, Hunan and Hubei provinces were spreading out along the Yangtze River's embankments Tuesday as the year's highest flood crest rolled downriver.

Authorities in Jiujiang, the starting point of the lower reaches of the rain-swollen Yangtze, urged people to be on high alert for floods and prepare for the season's worst overflow.

The flood peak slowly started receding upriver from Hankou, in Wuhan, in Central China's Hubei Province, but was still climbing downriver, local sources said.

The peak is expected to pass along 940 kilometers of levees in East China's Jiangxi, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces before emptying itself into the East China Sea around September 10, according to a Beijing-based expert.

By Tuesday afternoon, the front of the flood peak reached the Jiangsu section, pushing the water level up to warning marks in Nanjing, the capital of the province and Zhenjiang.

"The water level of the flood may crest even higher in the next two to three days with more rainfalls upstream of the Yangtze, along with the season's typhoon,'' an official in Jiangsu said.

In the city of Jiujiang, in Jiangxi Province, authorities declared a high alert, urging all regions along the river to take urgent measures to combat potential flooding.

"The city government has issued two urgent notices calling on every county and city along rivers or lakes to overcome indifference and a sense of good luck,'' according to Xinhua News Agency.

Jiujiang had mobilized 24-hour patrols to monitor embankments along the Yangtze and around Poyang Lake, where 40,000 civilians and soldiers are ready to deal with any emergencies triggered by the peak.

Millions of sandbags and stones are available for emergencies.

By Friday, water levels in Jiujiang and Hukou, where Poyang Lake joins the Yangtze, are likely to hit 20.85 meters and 20.27 meters respectively, which is more than 1.25 metres above warning lines.

In many key sections of the Yangtze's Jiujiang section, professional emergency teams started clearing snags in potential danger spots.

Poyang Lake, a key a buffer south of the Yangtze, is likely to experience its worst flooding as a water mass pours in from the river, local experts warned.

In Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, up to 10,000 people were still on standby for possible emergencies in Hunan's massive Dongting Lake. The water level was falling, but was still 2.4 metres above the warning mark.

No danger emerged Tuesday as the flood crest passed through Wuhan, where the Yangtze remained at 27.7 meters and lingered dangerously for a total of 22 hours, only second to the 26 hours reported during 1998.

The flood crest -- the eighth highest in recorded history and nearly 3 meters above the local danger mark-- passed so calmly that many residents were reportedly crowded in Longwangmiao, formerly the city's most dangerous section, to look at the phenomenon.

An estimated 20,000 people, about a third of the total needed during the 1998 summer flooding, were mobilized to keep watch along Wuhan's hundreds of kilometers of flood defenses.

A massive consolidation of the city's flood-control embankments allowed for the reduction in personnel.

(China Daily August 28, 2002)