Squatting on the Yangtze River dyke and smoking, Gao Nanchuan, a resident of Jiujiang city in east China's Jiangxi Province, was enjoying the sight of the swollen river flowing east.

"It's nothing, no threat at all," said 64-year-old Gao, who is also a spare-time flood watcher. The water level of the Yangtze, China's longest and most dangerous river, was actually already two meters higher than the foundations of Gao's house, just several dozen meters away from the dyke.

The peak of the flood waters of the Yangtze reached Jiujiang Wednesday, bringing the local water level up to 20.75 meters, 1.25meters higher than the alarm level. However, no dangerous situation was reported along the city's 190-kilometer river dykes throughout the day.

A medium-sized city with an urban population of half-million, Jiujiang attracted worldwide attention in the summer of 1998, when a major breach of the Yangtze River dyke caused a large part of the city to be inundated and bringing huge losses.

Liu Zhengmin, director of the Jiangxi provincial water resources department and an eyewitness to what happened four years ago, said that the breach was more than 60 meters wide with a massive wave of floodwaters rushing through at nearly 400 cubic meters per second.

"At the time I felt it was the end of the world and my family were busy transferring our valuables to relatives' houses in safe areas. It seemed that nobody in the city had any faith or a sense of safety," recalled Gao.

The grave situation prompted Chinese leaders to call for a "life or death" battle against the floods, and the breach was sealed up again within a few days thanks to joint efforts of local flood fighters and army reinforcements.

While the painful memories of 1998 were still fresh to many Jiujiang residents, this year's floods hardly aroused any public concern.

"Even if the water rises as high as in 1998, it won't cause the slightest panic among people here, because things are totally different now," said a local supermarket staff member, Mr. Wu.

In the past four years, China has invested 1.9 billion yuan (US$230 million) to fortify the entire Jiujiang section of the Yangtze River dyke. The entire project was completed this month.

From 1998 to 2001, the country also spent over 5 billion yuan (US$620 million) on water resources projects in Jiangxi, 1.6 times as much as the total flood control investment in the previous 49 years, Liu noted.

"It was really a brilliant idea of the central government to raise funds through bond issuance and then use the money to strengthen all main dykes along the Yangtze. This has enabled cities along the river to concentrate on local economic development," said Liu.

While enjoying an unprecedented level of safety, Jiujiang was set to remember 1998. The old breach site has been turned into a memorial zone, a sightseeing must for most visitors to the city.

"That was really a hard-won battle, and it must not be forgotten," a local official said.

(Xinhua News Agency August 29, 2002)