Rain threatens to raise China flood waters

FLOODWATERS threatening several cities and dozens of villages along central China’s vast Dongting Lake held at dangerously high levels yesterday, but could rise as heavy rain was forecast.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported that storms that could dump up to two inches of rain by tomorrow were forecast to hit the northern part of Hunan province, where the lake is located, and the western provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan.

Meanwhile, a state of emergency has been declared along the flood-swollen Yangtze River in the major industrial city of Wuhan in Hubei province.

However, a local flood control official said the situation was not considered extremely serious and said no evacuations had been ordered.

Floods and landslides have killed about 1,000 people across China since the rainy season began in June. More than 200 of those deaths were reported in Hunan.

Authorities have said more than one million workers and soldiers were mobilised to fortify the embankments of Dongting, China's second-largest freshwater lake, during the past week, as the water level rose.

Skies over the lake were clear yesterday morning and no major breaches along the lake’s 580 miles of dikes were reported.

An official at the province’s anti-flood headquarters said Dongting's water level was about six feet above the danger mark yesterday, the same level as the day before.

At the danger mark, water puts deadly pressure on the dikes rimming the 1,560-square-mile lake and along rivers flowing into it. The dikes protect six cities and dozens of villages.

In the provincial capital of Changsha, officials emerging from a flood emergency meeting said waters would remain high through early September, Xinhua said.

Teams of six people have been posted every 165 feet to watch the dikes around-the-clock along the Xiangjiang river, which runs through the city and into Dongting Lake.

Changsha has ordered 2,000 troops and 300,000 public employees to help fight floods.

On Friday, about 270,000 people had left the Dongting area and flooding had damaged 67,000 homes.