Breached river banks in NW China expected to be repaired Sunday
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Rescuers battling to block a breach in the banks of a river in northwest China's Shaanxi Province are expected to finish the work Sunday, according to the rescue headquarters.
The 80-meter gap in the banks of the Luofu River, a tributary of Weihe River, had been narrowed to 20 meters after more than 2,000 soldiers and residents worked all night to contain the flood waters, said Dang Decai, secretary of Huayin city committee of the Communist Party of China.
"If things go well, we will block the breach completely today," said Dang, who led the rescue work.
A Xinhua reporter saw rescuers and five excavators filling the breached banks with earth and stones.
A total of 6,404 people from 1,587 households in Huayin had been evacuated before the flood early Saturday after river inspectors warned the city's flood control officials that the river was rising dangerously at around 3 a.m., said a spokesman with Weinan City government, which administers Huayin.
Torrential rains pounded Huayin City from 8 a.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Saturday.
In Qianhe Township, in Shaanxi's Baoji City, more than 700 workers were speeding up efforts to repair a collapsed dike on the Qianhe River, another tributary of Weihe, said a spokesman with the city's flood control and drought relief office.
A 20-meter section of the embankment collapsed around 8:30 a.m. Saturday under pressure from the swollen Qianhe River, the spokesman said.
No casualties had been reported, he said.
The local railway authorities have closed the tracks on one side on a section of the Lianyungang-Lanzhou Railway, which traverses the Qianhe Bridge above the river, because a support pillar of the bridge had shifted.
