The biggest-ever flood crest since 1997 for the Yellow River's Shandong section, arrived at this provincial capital Thursday morning.  

At 2:00 a.m. Thursday, the flood crest reached the Aishan Hydrological Station, or the front station of Jinan, capital city of eastern Shandong Province, with a flow of 3,550 cubic meters per second, according to the provincial water control bureau for the Yellow River.

The bureau predicted the flood crest will reach Jinan's Luokou Hydrological Station in the afternoon, with a flow of 3,500 cubic meters per second, approximately 500 cubic meters higher than that in the third round of sand-washing operation that was finished last month for the country's second longest river.

However, the speedy flood will slow does and lose part of its momentum later and the Jinan section of the Yellow River will remain secure, the bureau reckoned.

The water flow at the Gaocun Hydrological Station, the first station of the Shandong section of the Yellow River, ebbed to 2,200 cubic meters per second at 8:00 Thursday, down from the 3,840-cubic meters level at 6:30 Wednesday morning, the bureau noted. The slowdown was owed mainly to the operation of the Xiaolangdi Water Control Project.

To ensure safe passage of the flood, the Yellow River Jinan section had had 18 floating bridges dismantled before the arrival of the flood.

The 5,464-km-long Yellow River, rising in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, wriggles its way through eight provinces and autonomous regions, and finally empties into the Bohai Sea in north China.

(Xinhua News Agency August 26, 2004)