Rain-soaked E China to fix dike breaches in 6 days
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Thousands of workers and soldiers will Friday start shoring up two breached river dikes in east China's Jiangxi Province, authorities said Thursday, as floods that have killed 211 people ravaged the south of the country for a tenth day.
The Fuhe River in Fuzhou City breached its banks for a second time early Wednesday, two days after a dike on another section of the river burst, forcing the evacuation of 100,000 people, according to the provincial Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.
The breaches were expected to be fixed in six days, but continuing heavy rains could undermine the efforts.
"Workers are battling to build a road to transport stones and other materials and we plan to block the breaches in six days," said a spokesman with the headquarters.
The goal was to let the evacuees return to their homes on July 2, but continuing rain in the area could delay the completion.
Torrential rain had further drenched Fuzhou since Wednesday night and was still pouring down at Thursday noon.
The first breach in the dike was about 400 meters wide and the second was slightly smaller.
A landslide carrying 50,000 cubic meters of debris hit Qingfeng River in Fengcheng City Wednesday, threatening the safety of 500,000 people in Fengcheng and Zhangshu cities, of Jiangxi.
The debris could block the flow and cause a lake, which could easily burst with dire consequences, said a spokesman of Jiangxi Provincial Land and Resources Department.
By 2 p.m. Thursday, two thirds of the debris had been removed and Qingfeng River dike has been strengthened with sandbags and stones, said Su Rong, secretary of the provincial committee of the Communist Party of China.
More than 400 of 760 villagers, including five pregnant women, remained trapped in Baozhuang Village of Shunchang County, Fujian Province, said Zhang Yexing, Party head of the village who swam out.
The village was isolated as the only bridge connecting it to outside was damaged, and water, electricity and communications had all been cut by the floods since June 18.
The rescue and relocation work is continuing.
Education authorities Thursday rescheduled the senior high school entrance examination from June 23 to July 2, as landslides severed roads and schools were inundated in the hard-hit city of Nanping, Fujian Province.
All the schools and kindergartens in Nanping were closed, affecting about 30,000 students, said Shen Qiuping, deputy chief of the municipal education bureau.
"We want to make sure that students are safe while sitting the exams. If the flooding persists in July, we may postpone the examination again," Shen said.
The provincial branch of State Grid had dispatched more than 6,000 repairmen after power was cut by the torrential rains in part of the province on June 15, and 90 percent of the blackout area had been restored by Thursday noon, said a spokesman of the company.
In neighboring Hunan Province, torrential rain and more water from its upper reaches had greatly driven up water levels in the Xiangjiang River.
In Xiangtan County, the river could rise to a record 42 meters by Friday, as downpours had been pounding the county since 3 p.m. Wednesday, said county flood control officials.
Four people had been killed and three were missing in the past 24 hours in floods in Guizhou, which borders Hunan, said the provincial Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters in a statement Thursday.
Almost 400 homes had collapsed, and more than 20,000 residents were temporarily relocated, the statement said.
Efforts have been made to check and remove safety hazards at more than 100 reservoirs in the county.
The heavy rains and floods had ravaged 10 south China regions, leaving 211 dead and 119 missing as of 4 p.m. Wednesday, a Ministry of Civil Affairs statement said.
The floods have caused direct economic losses of around 43.3 billion yuan (6.36 billion U.S. dollars), as rivers broke their banks, landslides severed road and rail links and houses collapsed, it said.
China's National Meteorological Center warned Thursday that torrential rains were expected to pound the badly-flooded southern regions, including Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, from Thursday to Friday.
The floods have brought back memories of the severe Yangtze River flooding in southern China in 1998, when 230 million people were affected, 3,656 died and 20.44 million were displaced.
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