Yellow River water Sunday poured into Tianjin, the largest coastal city in north China suffering serious water shortage due to a six-year dry spell.
Water shortage remains though the city with a population of several million has adopted water-saving methods and raised the price for water to help reduce daily consumption from 2.2 million cubic meters to 1.51 million cubic meters.
The Yellow River water diversion, the seventh since 1972, is an emergency measure approved by the central government to alleviate Tianjin's water shortage.
A total of 350 million cubic meters of water will be channeled to Tianjin by February next year from the Weishan Sluice Gate on the Yellow River, some 440 km away from Tianjin.
(People's Daily November 11, 2002)