Officials have ruled out the possibility of large-scale flooding
caused by a collapsed flood control road by the Yellow River in
northwest China's Shaanxi Province.
Workers were still reinforcing the collapsed area with stones on
Thursday evening and the breach was expected to be completely
closed on Friday, according to the provincial flood control and
drought relief headquarters.
Chen Wenjun, vice director of the headquarters, said an
increasing area of the cropland at the lower reaches was being
flooded.
Yet he fuled out the possibility of a large-scale flood because
"the whole situation is already under control".
The two-kilometer embankment, which narrows the watercourse of
the Yellow River, collapsed at 4:10 PM on Tuesday after floodwater
cascaded downstream in Dali County, said the headquarters.
It said the collapse was caused by a flood peak formed last
Friday upstream, which came barreling down the river at 3,710 cubic
meters per second.
About 400 farmers who were harvesting cotton and corn in the
adjacent area were evacuated after the collapse.
No casualties have been reported. More than 600 hectares of
cropland were inundated.
The flooding had destroyed at least 200 ha cropland, the sources
said.
(Xinhua News Agency September 29, 2006)
|