By Thursday, the flood crests forced Hunan authorities to evacuate more than 600,000 locals living around the Dongting Lake, China's second largest fresh water lake which is a key buffer south of the flood-prone Yangtze, to make way for possible flood discharges in the following days, according to official sources.

At least 16 people were confirmed to have been killed in Hunan and more than 8.4 million locals were affected. In addition, 27,000 houses have collapsed and 415,000 hectares of crops have been damaged, according to the latest statistics released Thursday by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

To help the victims, 28 million yuan (US$3.3 million) in emergency relief funds have been granted by the ministry and the Hunan provincial government to disaster-stricken areas.

Meanwhile, the Yangtze River has risen to danger levels in several places along its middle reaches as it nears the Dongting Lake, a reliable source told China Daily Thursday.

Vice-Premier Wen Jiabao has instructed government leaders in the Yangtze River valley to take urgent measures against potential flooding and mobilize soldiers and citizens to protect the riverbank and transport system.

Sources from Hunan said that the water line at the Chenglingji hydrology station, where the Yangtze River joins the Dongting Lake, had reached 34.45 meters Thursday and was likely to hit 35 meters tomorrow.

The province is on a full flood alert and some 10,000 soldiers are helping fight the floods, particularly around the Dongting Lake.

"More soldiers have prepared for the worst situation and will build temporary dikes atop the lake's major flood-control embankment if rain continues to push up the water level there,'' a senior water expert said Thursday.

Late Thursday, water levels continued to rise along the 600 to 700-kilometre-long section along the Yangtze between Shashi city in Hubei Province and Hukou city in Jiangxi Province.

"Generally speaking, the rise and fall of high water levels along the middle reaches of the Yangtze will last for about 50 days,'' said the expert who declined to be named, indicating that, from now on, people along the Yangtze River and Dongding Lake will experience the worst floods in the next seven or eight weeks.

Despite numerous media reports about flood dangers, the expert said, "the worst is yet to come.''

To date, the rising water levels are still two meters below the crest of the existing major flood-control embankments, he said, adding that, most levees and dikes have, since 1998, been shored up for three to four meters.

"Emergencies have been reported in some places but not everywhere like that in the 1998 flood that left more than 220 billion yuan (US$26.5 billion) damages,'' he said.

"What we have to do at the moment is to intensify patrol atop flood levees of the Yangtze and embankments of Dongting and deal with any emergencies that may cause heavy damages,'' he said.

Most of the people have moved out of the Dongting Lake area in Hunan where they used to live on islands formed by buildup of the lake's sediments with dikes surrounding them to protect farming.

Such islands have to be abandoned to make a way for massive floodwaters in to bid to prevent damages in major cities downstream of the lake, the expert noted.

The central government has, since the 1998 flood along the Yangtze, decided to enlarge outlets for floodwaters on the Yangtze River and the Dongting Lake to avoid heavy casualties like that of 1998.

The 1998 summer floods claimed more than 4,000 lives after the Yangtze River and Dongting Lake burst their banks in some sections.

(China Daily August 23, 2002)