China plans to build a flood-control project in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River this year, to help store and divert severe floods, according to the Yangtze River Water Conservancy Committee.

The flood storage and diversion project will cover an area of 10 billion cubic meters and be used for flood control along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

According to Wang Fangqing, deputy director of planning bureau of the Yangtze River Water Conservancy Committee, the flood control project will cost 8 billion yuan (US$936.8 million) and will be built in Chenglingji, where Dongting Lake meets the Yangtze River.

Chenglingji has all along been the key area for flood control in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. At present, the dykes have been strengthened and can resist ordinary floods.

However, to resist fierce floods like the one that occurred in 1954, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River have to divert and store 50 billion cubic meters of floodwater to ensure safety, Wang said.

Even upon completion of the Three Gorges Dam Project, which expects to reduce flood storage and diversion in the middle and lower reaches, it is still necessary to build flood storage and diversion areas large enough to contain more than 20 billion cubic meters of floodwater in the reaches around Chenglingji, the deputy director said.

As the first step, flood storage and diversion project capable of containing 10 billion cubic meters of floodwater will be built this year, in light of the Report on Flood Control Program along the Yangtze River Valley.

Experts estimated that floodwater levels in Shashi and Wuhan, cities of Hubei province along the Yangtze River, will be lowered 10 centimeters and 20 centimeters, respectively, if some 10 billion cubic meters of floodwater is stored and diverted in Chenglingji when floods as serious as the one in 1998 occur.

(Xinhua News Agency March 18, 2005)