Power was cut off as flood water from the Yellow River submerged an entire town in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, local authorities said on Friday.

Electricity was cut off as water inundated the transformer substation in Duguitala town, Hangji Banner in Ordos City, at about 9 PM on Thursday, said Bai Yuling, the Ordos deputy mayor,on Friday.

Bai said that 10,241 residents had been relocated to five temporary settlements in Hangji Banner and the nearby Kubuqi desert. No casualties have been reported.

Around 700 tents as well as drinking water and food have been sent to the temporary housing. Seven ambulances and 30 doctors were nearby, the flood control headquarters in Hangji said on Thursday afternoon.

Some 170 rescuers have been working alongside the embankment to repair the two burst areas. Troops fired 648 cannonballs into ice blocks on the upper reaches of the river to lower the water level.

The water approached Duguitala town, Hangji Banner in Ordos City at 4:10 PM on Thursday, where a 30-meter section of the embankment collapsed in the morning. A 450-m stretch lower down burst on Wednesday afternoon, said Niu Shaoyun, deputy director of the flood control headquarters in Hangji.

(Xinhua News Agency March 22, 2008)