Hundreds of thousands of people and soldiers are defending the dikes and embankments in Hubei and Hunan provinces.

Meanwhile, people in the lower reaches of the country's largest river, in Anhui Province, are making strenuous efforts to prepare for the coming flood peak.

Large amounts of relief goods and materials, including more than 3 million sandbags made of plastic fabrics, straw and jute, have been stored by the Anhui provincial flood control headquarters.

Officials from the Yangtze River Flood Control Headquarters told Xinhua that since 1998, when severe floods caused enormous losses in the Yangtze River area, tens of billions of yuan (8.27 yuan=1 US dollar) had been invested to repair flood prevention facilities along the river.

The year's largest flood so far has been caused by floodwaters from the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and Dongting Lake, according to some local experts.

Heavy rains since early August have been a major source of the floodwaters, the experts noted.

(Xinhua News Agency August 23, 2002)