The civil engineers responsible for the construction of the Three Gorges Water Control Project said here Saturday that the massive project is capable of operating in extremely severe flood situations.

The Three Gorges dam has been designed to withstand devastating floods with a runoff rate of 98,000 cubic meters per second and has been built to resist floods with a runoff rate of 113,000 cubic meters per second, according to Zheng Shouren, chief engineer with the Yangtze River Water Resources Committee and academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Zheng said that, if a flood with a runoff rate of 83,700 cubic meters per second were to occur in the Three Gorges area this year, the water level of the Three Gorges reservoir would rise to 140.5 meters. "The Three Gorges dam is capable of discharging water resulting from such severe floods," Zheng added.

The Three Gorges reservoir started storing water on June 1, and the water level is expected to reach 135 meters by June 15.

By 2009, upon completion, the reservoir's water level is expected to reach 175 meters and its storage capacity, 39.3 billion cubic meters. (More) Three Gorges project can withstand devastating floods^Severe floods of the scale seen every 100 years have not taken place in the country since New China was founded in 1949, said Peng Qiyou, director of the construction department of the Three Gorges Project Development Company.

The severe flooding of the Yangtze River in 1998 had a maximum runoff of 61,000 cubic meters per second, Peng said. The Three Gorges Project already stood flood runoff of 50,000 cubic meters per second for eight times during its second phase of construction, he added.

The two experts said that the Three Gorges project is of good quality and is undoubtedly capable of resisting floods of the scale witnessed every 20 to 100 years.

Given that the probability of severe flooding is very low and that measures to cope with flooding are in place, the building of the remaining parts of the Three Gorges project will proceed smoothly. The projects which have already been completed, including generating units and permanent sluice gates, will operate safely this year, they said.

Construction of the Three Gorges project, said to be the largest hydro-electric project in the world, began in 1993 with an estimated total investment of 180 billion yuan (US$21.8 billion).

Upon completion in 2009, the 26 power-generating units with a combined capacity of 18.2 million kilowatts will be operational, providing electricity to eastern and central China, where power supply is insufficient.