Yangtze flooding risk 鈥榚xtremely severe鈥
Print Edition
SEVERE floods are expected on China’s Yangtze River this year due to a strong El Nino weather pattern, raising the risk of deaths and damage to property and crops along the country’s longest waterway.
The weather conditions are the strongest since records began in 1951 and resemble a 1998 pattern that flooded the river and killed thousands, Vice Minister of Water Resources Liu Ning told Xinhua news agency.
“Precipitation in the upper, middle and lower reaches of the river is forecast to be as much as 80 percent more than normal from May to August,” Liu said.
Some Yangtze tributaries have already begun flooding and the flood control and drought relief situation is “extremely severe,” he said.
Provinces and cities along the river should make contingency plans, Wang Guosheng, governor of central China’s Hubei Province, was quoted as saying by Xinhua.
China has frequently been devastated by natural disasters, particularly floods and earthquakes.
Flooding is an annual problem that has been exacerbated by urban sprawl and poor drainage infrastructure in many cities.
A total of 1,320 people died in the 1998 floods, Xinhua said. The latest round of floods could be a test of the water management capabilities of the US$59-billion Three Gorges Dam, which was finished in 2012.
Along with power generation and navigation, it was designed to control the Yangtze’s water levels.
The ongoing El Nino, a warming of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific, has been linked to serious crop damage, forest fires and flash flood and drought around the world.
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