Yangtze river towns brace for floods

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

The flood crest of the Yangtze had passed through the city of seven million people by midday, the Yangtze River Water Resources Committee said.

Downstream, the river was approaching danger levels on dykes protecting Jiujiang, a city of 600,000 people in Jiangxi province, officials said.

Nearly 1,000 people have been reported killed in flooding or landslides since China’s rainy season began in June.

But most were in mountain or desert regions far from areas such as the Yangtze basin that have built up dykes and other preparations due to chronic annual flooding.

About 5,000 soldiers and civilians are watching the Jiujiang dykes for leaks, said an official at the city’s Antiflood Command Centre.

The river is expected to hit its peak early tomorrow, with waters four feet above the level considered dangerous for the dykes.

“But it will not threaten safety of Yangtze River dykes,” the official said.

Jiujiang has on hand more than 3.5 million sacks for sandbags and 8.7 million cubic feet of stones, he added.

Antiflood preparations also are under way in towns on Poyang Lake in Jiangxi, which connects to the Yangtze at Jiujiang, he said.

The lake receives water from both the Yangtze and rivers in Jiangxi swollen by recent rains.

In Hunan province, where more than 200 deaths were reported in recent weeks, some areas around the rain-swollen Lake Dongting and smaller rivers were still under water.

Dykes protecting the lakeside city of Yueyang held against the its high waters, but several smaller village dykes failed and unprotected low-lying areas were flooded.

A crack opened yesterday in a dyke protecting the city of Changde on the Yuan River in Hunan, but work crews stuffed the gap with quilts and sacking, said another official at the Changde antiflood office.

“The dangers have been controlled, but we are still on high alert” he said.