It was the 13th flood diversion on the flood-prone Huaihe River since 1949. The river is now hit by the most serious flooding seen over the past 12 years and it soon became the country's new focal point related to flooding as the Yangtze and the Yellow rivers have so far remained placid this year within their newly-built embankments.

Zhang Zhitong, director of the general office of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, said on Thursday that choosing to divert the floodwater at the joining of the Huaihe's upper and middle reaches was a cautious decision which prevented hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmlands along the upper reaches of the Huaihe River from being inundated, causing inestimable economic loss.

But too many times of flood diversion on the Huaihe River in some sense means the embankment construction along the river has comparatively lagged behind, Zhang added.

The 1,000-kilometer Huaihe River flows through central and eastern China's four provinces, namely Henan, Anhui, Shandong and Jiangsu, and is located exactly between the country's other two major rivers, the Yangtze and the Yellow rivers.

The population density at the Huaihe River valley has reached 594 people per square kilometer, making the valley one of the most densely populated areas compared with the country's other river valleys.

As one of China's leading grain and coal producers, the Huaihe River valley turns out 18 percent of China's grain and 15 percent of coal. The country's four railway arteries run through the valley, which is also recognized as the logistics center for China's biggest city Shanghai.

Throughout Chinese history, the Huaihe River was notorious for its frequent floods. It is recorded that the river suffered altogether 300 flood disasters over the past 500 years.

Late Chinese leader Mao Zedong once called to bring the Huaihe River under control following the founding of the People's Republic of China, and under his summons, the Huaihe became the first major Chinese river under a comprehensive embankment construction since 1949. Since then, the river's flood resistance ability has been greatly improved.

However, the river is still prone to floods when encountering heavy rainfall. Taking this year as an example, the river soon flooded after receiving continuous rainfall since June 21, which was 90 percent to 170 percent more than the average amount of the previous years.

Wang Shucheng, Minister of Water Resources, recently said that the country's flood control focus will switch to the Huaihe River from the Yangtze and Yellow rivers this year as the embankment construction along the latter two have met the designed requirements.

About 800 years ago, as the Yellow River deviated from its original course and began to flow through the lower reaches of the Huaihe River, it forced the Huaihe River to flow into the Hongze Lake. As a result, the Huaihe River experienced frequent blockage and became highly prone to flooding.

On June 28, the Huaihe River resumed flowing directly into the sea through a 163.5 km-long manmade waterway after being deprived of access to the Bohai Sea for about 800 years.

Zhang Zhitong said the project is key to preventing floods on a scale seen every 100 years at the lower reaches of Huaihe River. But the embankments along the river's upper and middle reaches still needs to be reinforced.

Over the past more than 10 years, the Chinese government earmarked more than 23.5 billion yuan (US$2.78 billion) for 18 key harnessing projects along Huaihe River. The Ministry of Water Resources recently pledged to speed up the embankment construction and accomplish all the projects in three to five years.

(Xinhua News Agency July 4, 2003)