Anhui evacuates 17,000 people, to blow up dikes
( 2003-07-06 14:27) (chinadaily.com.cn)
China has evacuated 17,000 people in eastern Anhui province ahead of plans to blow up river dikes on Sunday to release flood waters.
A one-story house is almost totally submerged in the floodwater in East China's Anhui Province July 4, 2003. [newsphoto.com.cn] |
The water level on the swollen Huaihe River had broken historic records, the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said.
China's flooding season usually starts around June and ebbs by September. The Ministry of Civil Affairs said last week that 148 people had died by late June from floods.
Widespread floods in the summer of 2002 killed more than 1,500 people and caused damages estimated at 68 billion yuan, or US$8.2 billion.
Last year's floods were the worst since 1998, when weeks of relentless rain on the Yangtze River triggered floods that killed about 4,000 people.
Expert said the world's largest hydroelectric project, the Three Gorges Dam, will help tame the 6,300-km (3,900-mile) Yangtze, whose annual floods killed 300,000 people in the last century alone.
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