Beijing, July 20 (IANS) The Three Gorges Dam, China’s main reservoir built on Yangtze river last year, Tuesday passed its biggest flood control test by sustaining a massive water flow, greater than the 1998 floodings which claimed over 4,000 lives.
According to Xinhua, the flow on the river’s upper reaches topped 70,000 cubic metres a second Tuesday — 20,000 cubic metres more than the flow during the 1998 floods that killed 4,150 people and the highest level since the dam was completed last year.
The flow peaked at 70,000 cubic metres per second at 8 a.m., still below the record high of 70,800 cubic metres per second in 1981, a senior official of the Three Gorges corporation said.
‘The peak flow is high, but it has not exceeded the designed capacity of 100,000 cubic metres of water per second,’ said Cao Guangjing, the corporation’s chairman.
‘The dam can withstand the challenge easily,’ Cao said.
At least 146 people have been killed and 40 were missing in 10 provinces till last week due to continuous rainstorms and floods since July 1, the ministry of civil affairs said Monday.
All ferry services were halted at the dam Monday and the 30-km exclusive road along the river had been opened to vehicles carrying shipping cargoes, said an official of the Three Gorges Navigation Administration.
Services would be resumed after the influx decreased from 70,000 to 45,000 cubic metres per second, the official said.
Ferries near the Gezhouba Dam, on the lower reaches of the Three Gorges, were still operating as the flow there was 40,000 cubic metres a second, below its designed capacity of 60,000 cubic metres per second, the official said.
