China's Yangtze River is likely to flood badly this year for the first time since 1998.
China's Yangtze River is likely to flood badly this year for the first time since 1998, when floodwaters from China's longest river killed more than 3,000 people, an expert was quoted on Wednesday as saying.
Adding to the danger was the growth of rich cities along the river, such as Chongqing, Wuhan and Nanjing, making any floods potentially more disastrous.
"Be on the alert that it is likely that a relatively big flood will hit the Yangtze River," the semi-official China News Service quoted Cai Qihua, vice-commander-in-chief of the Yangtze River Flood Control Headquarters, as saying.
"Meteorological and hydrological" features within the Yangtze basin this year were similar to those of 1998, Cai said.
The floods that summer left 14 million homeless and caused $24 billion in economic damage.
Cai also said some banks along sections of the Jingjiang River, a section of the Yangtze, could be at risk of collapse.
The Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydropower project, is retaining huge amounts of sediment and nutrients and causing significant erosion in the downstream reaches of the river.
The dam reservoir has been fouled by pesticides, fertilizers and sewage, and more than 600 km of the Yangtze were critically polluted, Xinhua news agency said last month, calling the impact of human activities on the Yangtze ecology "largely irreversible".
Adding to the danger was the growth of rich cities along the river, such as Chongqing, Wuhan and Nanjing, making any floods potentially more disastrous.
"Be on the alert that it is likely that a relatively big flood will hit the Yangtze River," the semi-official China News Service quoted Cai Qihua, vice-commander-in-chief of the Yangtze River Flood Control Headquarters, as saying.
"Meteorological and hydrological" features within the Yangtze basin this year were similar to those of 1998, Cai said.
The floods that summer left 14 million homeless and caused $24 billion in economic damage.
Cai also said some banks along sections of the Jingjiang River, a section of the Yangtze, could be at risk of collapse.
The Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydropower project, is retaining huge amounts of sediment and nutrients and causing significant erosion in the downstream reaches of the river.
The dam reservoir has been fouled by pesticides, fertilizers and sewage, and more than 600 km of the Yangtze were critically polluted, Xinhua news agency said last month, calling the impact of human activities on the Yangtze ecology "largely irreversible".
(REUTER)
