Authorities downstream on the Yangtze River braced themselves for high water racing towards them today as the city of Wuhan escaped flooding.

More than 700,000 people have been evacuated from areas threatened by flooding around a huge lake in central China, but more than eight million are at risk, officials said today.

China has mobilised almost a million people to shore up dykes that protect six cities and dozens of villages from a huge, rain-swollen lake.