The annual operation of flushing silt from the ailing Yellow River, China's second longest waterway, into the Bohai Sea, began on Tuesday.

 

The operation, due to be completed on July 1, will enable the river water to flow at 4,000 cubic meters per second, said the Yellow River water resources committee in Zhengzhou, central China's Henan Province.

 

It said this year's work, the sixth since this technique was first employed in 2002, will last for 12 days instead of the previous 15 to 18 days because water storage in Xiaolangdi Reservoir, Yellow River's largest reservoir in the lower reaches, is at least two billion cubic meters less than last year because of drought.

 

The operation works by discharging water from three reservoirs - Wanjiazhai, Sanmenxia and Xiaolangdi - to stir the sediment in the Yellow River.

 

The Yellow River has been plagued by an increasing amount of mud and sand and less water. Each year, the river bed grows higher due to silt deposits, slowing the water flow in the lower reaches.

 

The Xiaolangdi project alone, which is second only to the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze in terms of workload, has pushed hundreds of million tons of silt into the sea thanks to the past five rounds of silt-washing operations.

 

Now water flows at 3,500 cubic meters per second, compared with 1,800 cubic meters per second in this section of waterway in 2002.

 

The 5,464 meter-long Yellow River originates on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, winds its way through eight provinces and autonomous regions, and empties into the Bohai Sea in north China.

 

(Xinhua News Agency June 19, 2007)