Country prepares for flood season
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E-mail China Daily, May 29, 2012
![A worker in Wuhan, Hubei province, reinforces the embankment along the Chailinwan River, a branch of the Hanjiang River, on May 21. [China Daily]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20120529/0014222d9850112e6ce61c.jpg "A worker in Wuhan, Hubei province, reinforces the embankment along the Chailinwan River, a branch of the Hanjiang River, on May 21. [China Daily]") |
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A worker in Wuhan, Hubei province, reinforces the embankment along the Chailinwan River, a branch of the Hanjiang River, on May 21. [China Daily] |
Local authorities have stepped up preparations for relief work and are making every effort to prevent the river from flooding.
"The embankments along the river have been reinforced, and there will be frequent reports on the river's situation when the flood season comes," said Wu Hongbin, a flood control official in Huaiyuan county, Anhui province.
Authorities are also worried about the prevention and control of flood-triggered disasters, such as mudslides, which, if the conditions were right, could occur within a matter of hours.
"Some local residents have relaxed their attention since there has been almost no major flood in the past few years," Ji said.
He urged local government to make full preparations for possible evacuations in case of severe flooding.
A sediment-washing operation has been launched in the Three Gorges Dam for the first time.
Vast amounts of silt on the bottom of the Three Gorges Dam river section will be removed by June 10, to leave sufficient water storage when the Yangtze River enters into flood season, the river's monitor agency said.
As of May 15, excessive rain had affected more than 4 million people in 90 counties in Jiangxi and Hunan provinces, causing a total of 1.4 billion yuan in direct economic losses, according to the Changjiang Water Resources Commission.
Regions along the Pearl River saw eight major floods in the past two decades, leading to 510 billion yuan in direct economic losses, said Zhao Xiaolin, deputy chief engineer of the Pearl River Water Resources Commission.
"As one of the frontiers of China's reform and opening-up, tremendous economic losses for the Pearl River Delta regions would be too great to bear," she said.
By May 15, massive rainfall had triggered flooding and landslides in Guangdong, resulting in 16 deaths and 30,610 residents being evacuated, statistics from local government showed.
"Most of the victims came from other places outside Guangdong and were not familiar with the disasters. They really had no idea of how to escape to safety," Qiu Dehua, deputy head of water resources department of Guangdong, told China Daily.
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