As temperatures dropped drastically along the Yellow River, ice blocks appeared in the river's upper reaches and posed a threat to flood control in the lower reaches, according to the Yellow River Water Conservation Committee.

So far, the section of the river, China's second longest, in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, north China, has begun to freeze and ice blocks have made up 40 percent of the river water.

To make the situation worse, sustained rainfall since August resulted in autumn floods, which usually last three months to October, to carry on into winter in the middle and lower reaches, said Xu Changsuo, an official with the flood control office under the committee.

In the past years, the volume of water flows in the middle reaches was merely 200 to 300 cubic meters per second in December. However, statistics from the Tongguan hydrological station in the eastern part of Shaanxi Province showed this year the volume remained around 1,300 cubic meters per second.

Xiaolangdi Reservoir, a major water conservation and irrigation project on the Yellow River, noted Xu, has stored a 8.2 billion cubic meters of water and could only spare a storage of one billion cubic meters for the potential flood caused by the ice, which is just half of what is needed.

The governments in the areas along the river's lower reaches were urged to make preparation against any possible flood, said Xu

(Xinhua News Agency December 5, 2003)