Falling lake level reveals 400-year-old stone bridge
Print Edition
A STONE bridge dating back to the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) has been discovered after water levels plunged in China’s largest freshwater lake.
The remains of the 2,930-meter-long bridge, made entirely of granite and dating back nearly 400 years, appeared at Poyang lake in the eastern province of Jiangxi, The Beijing News reported yesterday.
The lake, which has been as large as 4,500 square kilometers in the past, has been drying up in recent years due to a combination of low rainfall and the impact of the Three Gorges Dam, experts say.
CCTV reported in November that drought had shrunk the lake to less than 1,500 square kilometers, threatening the fish and other organisms that inhabit it, and the livelihoods of the nearly 70 percent of local residents who make a living through fishing.
By lowering the level of the Yangtze River, the vast Three Gorges dam project has also caused an increased outflow of water from Poyang and Dongting, a lake in neighboring Hunan Province, experts told The Beijing News, lowering the water levels of both.
In 2012, Chinese authorities air-dropped shrimps and grain over Poyang lake to feed hundreds of thousands of birds at risk of hunger due to drought.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
