Chinese and Pakistanis busy with floods while the Russians are fighting fires.
"China floods strand 30,000, dump chemicals into river" by Chi-Chi Zhang, Associated Press | July 29, 2010
BEIJING — Workers began cleaning up a chemical spill in northeastern China today after more than 3,000 containers of chemicals were washed into a river by the worst floods to hit the country in more than a decade.
The buckets, containing a flammable chemical used to make rubber and adhesives, tumbled into the Songhua River near Jilin city in Jilin Province after a flood swept through a local factory, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Only about 400 buckets had been recovered as of this morning. No further details were immediately available.
The Songhua has had environmental problems before. In 2005 carcinogenic chemicals, including benzene, spilled into the river, forcing the northeastern city of Harbin to sever water supplies to 3.8 million people for five days.
Floods this year have killed at least 928 people, left 477 missing, and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage, the State Flood Control and Drought Prevention office reported. More heavy rains were expected through tomorrow.
About 30,000 residents were trapped and left without power in their homes in Jilin after torrential rains drenched the town of Kouqian, Xinhua reported.
Flooding has hit areas all over China. Thousands of workers sandbagged riverbanks and checked reservoirs in preparation for potential floods expected to flow from the swollen Yangtze and Han rivers, said an official with the Yangtze Water Resources Commission....
The Han is expected to rise this week to its highest level in two decades, Xinhua reported. The flood threat was greater than usual because the Yangtze, into which the Han flows, was also reaching peak levels, it said.
Cuts:
Workers were prepared to blast holes in the Han embankment to divert flood waters into a low-lying area of farms and fish ponds, from which more than 5,000 people were evacuated, Xinhua said yesterday.
Thousands of rescuers in China's Henana Province searched for survivors yesterday after a bridge collapsed from heaving flooding in the Yi River over the weekend, killing 37 people with 29 missing, Xinhua reported. Twenty-nine were missing.
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Here is a snapshot you webbers would have never seen on the Globe site:
What else could go wrong?
"Flood-borne trash could block dam gates; Debris at China’s Three Gorges threatens shipping" by Associated Press | August 3, 2010
BEIJING — Intense flooding has swept thick layers of garbage down the Yangtze River that are threatening to block the gates of the Three Gorges Dam, state media reported yesterday....
If the dam’s gates become blocked, operators probably would have difficulty opening and closing the locks to control shipping on the river.
China’s worst flooding in a decade has killed at least 991 people, left 558 missing, and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage, the State Flood Control and Drought Prevention office said. More heavy rains were expected through today.
Chen Lei said heavy downpours have pushed unusually large amounts of debris downstream, including tree branches and plastic bottles and other domestic waste. Nearly 3,000 tons of garbage are collected from the dam daily, but there is not enough manpower and equipment to clear it all, he said.
A layer of garbage about 2 feet deep, covering an area of more than a half million square feet, began to form in front of the dam when the rainy season began in early July, the China Daily reported, citing the Hubei Daily newspaper....
Don't fall in the river.
The Three Gorges Corp. has spent some $1.5 million to clear 5.2 million to 7 million cubic feet of floating waste from the dam area annually, the paper said. More than 150 million people live near the dam and its upper stream, but many cities remain unequipped for garbage disposal.
The dam, the world’s largest hydropower project, was promoted as the best way to end centuries of floods along the Yangtze River basin. Government officials long ignored complaints about the enormous environmental impact of the $23 billion reservoir that has displaced more than 1.4 million people.
Meanwhile, the death toll from a bridge collapse triggered by intense flooding in central China has risen to 51 people. Rescuers searched for 15 people still missing in Henan Province’s Yi River after a bridge collapsed more than a week ago.--more--"
