After constant heavy investment, China has set up a basic engineering system that could cope with floods on a normal scale, according to a top Chinese flood control official.

E Jingping, secretary-general of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, said China's water conservancy work had made eye-catching progress since new China was founded in 1949.

"Over the past 50 years, China has built more than 200,000 km of dikes, more than 80,000 reservoirs and nearly 100 flood basins as defense against floods," said E.

Qian Zhengying, vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told an international conference on flood control that since the big flood of 1998 on the Yangtze River, China had invested nearly 30 billion yuan (about 3.61 billion US dollars) to strengthen Yangtze dikes.

She said the effort had paid off as the river's main levee this year successfully withstood the largest surge of floodwater since 1998. "The main levee has not been in significant danger this year," she said.

She said China had established a comprehensive system that not only coped with floodwater control, but also flood disaster relief.

(Xinhua News Agency September 12, 2002)