Chinese artillery troops carried out a blasting operation on a stretch of the Yellow River on Friday in Inner Mongolia to clear accumulating ice blocks threatening lives and property.

The 70-strong artillery unit shot 100 cannonballs on the Qingshuihe section of the country's second longest river to destroy ice blocks as thick as 1.2 to 1.5 meters, according to Zhu Deming, commander-in-chief of the operation.

It was the first blasting operation on the frozen river this year to ensure a smooth thaw to protect the safety of nearby villages, the officer said.

Sections of the river freeze and thaw at different times. When an ice run flows into a frozen section it can become blocked. If the blockage persists, water levels may rise and cause flooding and dam bursts, threatening lives and property. The ice-run phenomenon takes place at the start of winter and spring.

The Yellow River in the northern Inner Mongolia began to melt on Tuesday after a full thawing of the upper stretch in neighboring Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

More than 70,000 people in the region have been organized for rescue and disaster relief efforts along the total of 720 kilometer frozen stretch of the Yellow River in the region.

The People's Liberation Army's air force and artillery troops have also joined the flood prevention operation.

The river's ice flood was the heaviest in 40 years. Its watercourse in the region is currently holding some 1.8 billion cubic meters of water, 50 percent more than in a normal year. Low-quality dams in certain sections worsened the situation.

On Monday, water began to be diverted at 50 cubic meters per second to the Hetao area in Inner Mongolia to relieve floodwater pressure.

To help ensure a smooth thaw, the upper Liujiaxia Reservoir in Gansu Province has reduced sluicing water flow from 400 cubic meters per second to 240 cubic meters per second.

The Inner Mongolia stretch is forecasted to be fully thawed by late March.

The 5,464-km-long Yellow River originates in Qinghai Province in the northwest and flows through Sichuan, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Henan and Shandong before emptying into the Bohai Sea.

(Xinhua News Agency March 15, 2008)