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dam-l "Yangtze River Embankments Collapse", AP, Aug 4 98 (fwd)



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From owner-irn-three-gorges@igc.org  Wed Aug  5 19:43:38 1998
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Date: Wed, 05 Aug 1998 14:49:25 -0700
From: Three Gorges Campaign <threegorges@irn.org>
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Subject: "Yangtze River Embankments Collapse", AP, Aug 4 98
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>August 4, 1998
>
>Yangtze River Embankments Collapse
>
>Filed at 9:16 a.m. EDT
>
>By The Associated Press
>
>BEIJING (AP) -- Waterlogged levees along China's
>flood-swollen Yangtze River have started to collapse,
>wreaking death and destruction on a massive scale, state
>media said today. Other reports said more than 1,000
>people were missing.
>
>Torrential rains in southwest Sichuan province also have
>triggered flooding that killed at least 20 people,
>pushing the known death toll from floods caused by
>unusually heavy and early summer rains to 1,288.
>
>With a tropical storm and another flood tide expected,
>the threat mounted of further breaches along the
>weakened levees that protect millions of people and rich
>farmland from the Yangtze, the world's third-longest
>river.
>
>Main Yangtze dikes remain intact but secondary levees
>were breached in at least two counties and a city in
>central China's Hubei province, ``causing huge loss of
>life and property,'' the official China Youth Daily
>reported.
>
>The newspaper gave no casualty figures. But a human
>rights group said 150 soldiers and hundreds of villagers
>were swept away when a levee suddenly collapsed Saturday
>in Hubei's Jiayu County, about 40 miles upriver from the
>industrial center of Wuhan.
>
>As of Monday, the bodies of nine soldiers had been
>recovered, said the Information Center of Human Rights
>and Democratic Movement in China. The Hong Kong-based
>group said more than 1,000 people were believed missing.
>
>Local officials have barred foreign journalists from
>visiting the worst flood areas, and state-controlled
>media tend to provide delayed or conflicting accounts
>and downplay casualties.
>
>The official Yangcheng Evening News said 400 soldiers
>were swept away when the levee that had been protecting
>56,000 people in two towns collapsed. Soldiers and
>police pulled nearly 20,000 people from the water, the
>newspaper said.
>
>In a bid to lower the Yangtze's waters, Hubei
>authorities abandoned 11 small dikes to divert
>floodwaters, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said. The
>strategy caused $48 million in flood damage, but helped
>protect Wuhan.
>
>More than 100,000 people lost their homes when a levee
>burst in Anxiang, in neighboring Hunan province, on July
>24, Xinhua reported. Victims were living in tents,
>``without adequate food and drinking water,'' the agency
>said.
>
>In all, the 3,900-mile-long Yangtze was threatening to
>burst its embankments in 3,200 places, and 1,800 of
>these possible breaches were ``major,'' Xinhua said.
>
>``The flood control situation along the Yangtze remains
>extremely serious and will remain so for the foreseeable
>future,'' it reported.
>
>Millions of soldiers and civilians have been working the
>dikes, watching for signs of collapse and plugging
>leaks, as waters on the Yangtze reached levels unseen
>since floods in 1954 killed more than 30,000 people.
>
>Aside from killing 20 people, the floods in Sichuan
>province in recent days also injured 370 people and left
>two others missing, Xinhua said.
>
>A flood peak, the fourth this year, was forming on the
>upper reaches of the Yangtze, the China Youth Daily
>said.



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International Rivers Network	Doris Shen
Three Gorges Campaign	threegorges@irn.org
1847 Berkeley Way		tel:  510.848.1155 ext. 317
Berkeley, CA 94720		fax:  510.848.1008
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