The government yesterday authorized the flooding of dozens of evacuated villages to ease the pressure on a swollen river.

At 10AM yesterday, the Minister of Water Resources Chen Lei issued an order to open 13 sluices at Wangjiaba Dam, on the Huaihe River to divert water to the adjacent Mengwa Buffer Zone, which is home to 150,000 people.

The move will relieve 2 million people in Henan Province, on the upper reaches of the river, and alleviate pressure downstream, Qiu Ruitian, deputy director of the Office of the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, said.

The water level monitored at the Wangjiaba hydrological station was 29.29 m at 10AM yesterday, just 10 cm below the danger line.

The diversion could damage up to 12,000 hectares of cropland inside the 180-sq-km Mengwa Flood Storage Area. But the impact on residents in the Mengwa area will be limited, as most house sit on elevated platforms. People in low-lying areas have already moved to higher ground.

Eleven people have been killed in floods in Anhui this year and more than 430,000 residents have been stranded.

The Mengwa area, which has four administrative townships in the impoverished wheat-growing part of north Anhui, has been submerged more than 10 times since 1953. In 2003, it suffered 1 billion yuan (US$132 million) in losses when floodwater was diverted from the Huaihe River.

The level of the mainstream of the river has been rising rapidly due to heavy rains since late last month. The local flood administration said it did not know when the water level would return to a safe level.

As of Monday, floods had this year left 101 people dead and 26 missing, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, said.

(China Daily July 11, 2007)