China swears to completely harness Huaihe River by 2007
( 2003-10-30 09:12) (Xinhua)
The Chinese government
is determined to have put the flood-prone Huaihe River completely under control
by 2007, according to a working conference on harnessing of the river
held Wednesday.
The conference also demanded help for local residents, affected by the worst
flooding this year since 1954, to speed up in resuming production and rebuilding
of their homes.
Dozens of water control projects have been constructed over the 50 past years
and the gradually-worsening environment has been restrained, according to the
conference.
And the efforts made by the central and local governments laid a good
foundation for the improvement of the people's lives, social stability and
economic development.
However, it was noted there is still a long way to go to better contain the
river.
The conference demanded building of top-quality flood control projects by
taking comprehensive measures and called for strict administration of the
quality of the projects, improvement of the administrative system on irrigation
works and supervision on usage of various funds.
The Huaihe River is notorious for its frequent floods with 300 disastrous
floods recorded over the past five centuries, endangering the lives of local
people in the river valley. The area now produces 18 percent of the country's
food grain and 15 percent of coal.
The 1,000-km Huaihe River flows through four central and eastern Chinese
provinces, namely Henan, Anhui, Shandong and Jiangsu, and is located exactly
between the country's two longest rivers, the Yangtze and the Yellow
rivers.
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