Yangtze flood alarm rises to strident level

The mainland's flood response alert was raised to the second highest level yesterday as heavy rain battered regions along the Yangtze river, with the eastern provinces of Jiangsu and Jiangxi among the worst hit.

Flooding in Jiangxi's Poyang county pushed the level of Lake Poyang - China's biggest freshwater lake - to above 22.5 meters, an all-time high. And the alert level had by then been well passed at 19.5m.

Saturday evening had seen provincial military authorities sending thousands of soldiers to help bolster nearly nine kilometers of the lake's banks.

China follows a four-tier flood control emergency response system, with level one representing the most severe.

So far this year some 141 people have died or gone missing in floods, which have ravaged 3.53 million hectares of farmland and flattened 28,000 homes.

Economic losses totaled 82.2 billion yuan (HK$91 billion), Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.

According to officials in the Ministry of Water Resources 212 rivers have exceeded their alerting levels since early July, with 19 of them rising to historical highs.

Authorities have blamed unusual weather conditions, including humidity carried from the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, as the immediate cause of flooding. But long-term changes in climate patterns have also made situations worse.

REUTERS