As of 8:00 p.m. Friday, the water level of the swollen Weihe
River has dropped about 1.59 meters over the past four days, but
Huaxian County of northwest China's Shaanxi Province remained under
flood threat, local officials said Friday.
The water flow of the river is about 800 cubic meters per
second, much lower than the warning water flow of 2,000 cubic
meters per second, but waters continued to pour into the low-lying
outskirts of Huaxian through the breaches in the embankments, said
Jia Zhibang, governor of Shaanxi.
A serious breach occurred in the embankment of the Weihe River
Tuesday night and relief teams and troops were still stationed at
the dykes and embankments to prevent the breaches from
expanding.
Jia said emergency teams had begun to block the breaches with
huge baskets of stones and rocks.
(Xinhua News Agency September 6, 2003)
