Huge amounts of polluted water are flowing down to the middle reaches of the Huaihe River, one of the seven rivers in China, as three tributaries of the river's upper reaches suffered heavy rains over the past three days, according to the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters of east China's Anhui Province.

Sources with the headquarters said that from 8:00 a.m. Thursday to 2:00 p.m. Saturday, rainfall on the upper reaches of the Yinghe and Wohe rivers amounted to 100-250 mm, while on the upper reaches of the Honghe River it was 200-300 mm.

As the Yinghe and Wohe rivers had been seriously polluted during the previous months, the dirty floodwater would pose a threat to drinking water security for residents along the middle reaches of the Huaihe River, the sources said.

The headquarters has decided to start up an emergency water control mechanism to prevent the polluted floodwater from flowing down in a concentrated way and demanded local environmental protection authorities to intensify water quality supervision.

In a related report, rainstorms on the three tributaries of the Huaihe River have caused a flood in the northern Huaihe area, including Dangshan County, in which 80-odd villages have been surrounded by floodwater.

Prior to this, nearly 7,700 local residents had been moved from two areas used to divert floodwater when floods hit another two tributaries of the Huaihe River after days of heavy rain.

One of China's most restless and unruly rivers, the 1,000-km Huaihe River is notorious for its frequent floods with 300 deluges recorded over the past five centuries.

The nation will invest about 40 billion yuan (US$4.8 billion) in the coming years in a series of projects to put the Huaihe River under control by 2007.

(Xinhua News Agency July 19, 2004)