The fight against flooding in central China's Hunan and Hubei provinces came to a crux yesterday, as a thunderstorm packing high winds and torrential rains hit the northern and western parts of Hunan Province, including areas along the Lishui River, the lower reaches of the Yuanshui River and the northern parts of Dongting Lake.

Due to precautions taken by the local government, water levels in Dongting Lake and the Xiangshui, Zishui and Yuanshui rivers continued to recede slowly yesterday despite the rainfall.

The one exception was the Lishui River, which witnessed a higher water level, according to sources with the provincial flood-control headquarters of Hunan.

Over 10,000 soldiers and armed policemen immediately rushed to the major dykes along Dongting Lake yesterday morning with equipment and life jackets to prepare for a possible dangerous situation.

The decisive battle to beat the flood has begun, and danger may appear at any time, especially around the inland lakes, the provincial flood-control headquarters announced.

Yang Zhengwu, secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, yesterday required all levels of governments and all departments to defend the dykes and ensure success in the battle.

The rainy weather is expected to continue until tomorrow.

Meanwhile, various measures have been taken in the disaster areas to prevent the outbreak of epidemic diseases, according to Jian Xuewu, director of the Hunan provincial disaster relief and disease prevention office.

The disaster-hit areas were immediately sterilized and rubbish and mud were cleared away after the flood receded, said Jian, noting that incidence of acute infectious disease declined in August compared with the same month last year.

In Hubei Province in the central and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the water level in the capital Wuhan reached 27.61 meters yesterday, 0.31 meters above the warning level. It is expected to continue to climb in the coming days.

Some 3,500 local people are now defending the dykes, while soldiers and armed police officers are on standby for rescue work, the headquarters said.

So far, no major flood-related mishaps have occurred along the main levees of the Yangtze, even though the river has been hit by flood crests as reported by the provinces stretching along its middle reaches.

The 215-kilometre embankment in Hunan Province has not been breached despite six flood peaks having passed through, thanks to the country's heavy investment in flood-control projects since 1998's devastating flooding that claimed 1,562 lives in five provinces along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze. Since then, the central government has poured 160 billion yuan (US$19.2 billion) into construction of water conservation projects and kilometers of levees along the flood-prone Yangtze have been massively reinforced, according to Wang Shucheng, minister of water resources.

The investment, excluding money spent on the construction of the mammoth Three Gorges Project, accounts for 70 percent of China's total input in all kinds of water-control projects since 1949.

Most of the government's 160 billion yuan investment for water-control projects was spent on reinforcing or building flood-control infrastructure along China's major rivers, according to Wang.

Most of the funds were raised by the government through the issuance of nationwide special public bonds.

For the Yangtze alone, some 29 billion yuan (US$3.4 billion) was earmarked during the 1998-2002 period to consolidate the roughly 3,000-kilometer-long major levees shielding vast areas along the river's middle and lower reaches.

"Such massive investment for water conservancy projects was unprecedented in China's history and world history as well," Wang said.

Wang said he is confident that "in the next 50 to 100 years, there will be no need for China to launch another large-scale reinforcement of the levees there."

(china.org.cn, edited from China Daily, August 27, 2002)