Meanwhile, Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu, who inspected the anti-flood campaign in Anhui on Sunday urged the local governments have been urged to guarantee food, accommodation and medical services for people affected by the floods.

From the beginning of this year, the central government has spent a total of 801 million yuan (US$96.5 million) to support nationwide efforts fighting floods and droughts.

A seventh dyke on the rain-swollen Huaihe River was blown up yesterday to divert flood waters and protect the industrial city of Bengbu in northern Anhui.

The demolition yesterday morning drained some of the river's waters into a diversion area from which 11,130 villagers had been evacuated, said Wang Qiang, spokesman for the Anti-Flood Command Headquarters for Anhui Province.

The Huaihe River was 1.23 meters above its danger level on Sunday evening and was 35 centimeters above its past record high.

Anhui and Jiangsu, another province in East China, have become the main victims of the Huaihe River which began to see continuous rainfall from late June.

A total of 378,900 people have been moved out of the areas that were flooded in order to lower the river level, Wang said.

Among the evacuated, 275,500 have sought shelter with relatives and friends, 57,600 are living in State housing, 25,100 in tents, and 20,077 in temporary shelters, according to the provincial civil affairs department.

The Huaihe River has 15 more flood diversion areas that can be used if the flooding danger worsens, Wang said.

The rainfall on the Huaihe River will decline today, continuing its good trend from Sunday, but flood preparation must be stepped up during the respite, said Cheng Dianlong, deputy director of the Office of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

To date, no major threats to embankments along the mainstream of the Huaihe River have emerged, but 700 minor incidents have threatened dykes around flood division areas, which are now all under control.

The number of flood fighters along the Huaihe River has increased to 870,000 on Sunday from 760,000 on Saturday.

Officials also warned that as China has entered into a flood period across the country, close attention should be paid to the flood situation on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the Songhua River in Northeast China, two rivers that brought heavy flood disasters to China in 1998.

(China Daily July 8, 2003)