国内英语新闻:China's Three Gorges Dam buffers worst flood in decades

Breaches of dikes on the above-ground Jingjiang section could threaten 15 million residents and 1.5 million hectares of crops.

Water level in the lower Jiujiang section in eastern province of Jiangxi is expected to be reduced by 0.5 meters when the flood crest reaches Jiujiang on July 25.

The will make a severe flood into a common flood, said Tan Guoliang, head of the Jiangxi maritime bureau.

The current situation was stable in the lower reaches, said an official of the Bureau of Hydrographic, Yangtze River Water Resources Commission.

The water level has begun to fall in the Hankou area of Wuhan City, capital of central China's Hubei Province, the official said.

As of 2 p.m. Tuesday, the water flow there dropped to 66,000 cubic meters per second, the official said.

According to the monitoring systems at the dam, power generation continued as normal during the high flow, the official said.

All ferry services were halted at the Three Gorges Dam on Monday and the 30-km road along the river had been opened to vehicles carrying shipping cargoes, said an official of the Three Gorges Navigation Administration.

Services would be resumed after the flow decreased from 70,000 to 45,000 cubic meters per second, the official said.

Ferries near the Gezhouba Dam, on the lower reaches of the Three Gorges, were still operating as the flow there was 40,000 cubic meters a second, below its designed capacity of 60,000 cubic meters per second, the official said.

Days of torrential rains has raised water levels in many tribunaries of Yangtze to record levels and inundated seven county seats in Sichuan, Chongqing and Shaanxi.

A total of 630,000 people in provinces along Yangtze, including Hubei, Anhui and Hunan, were battling the flood. Landslides and floods had affected 9.2 million residents and left 44 people dead and further 95 missing in mainly mountainous areas of the three regions by Monday.

Historically, the Yangtze river floods caused huge losses for China in 1931, 1945 and 1998. The floods in 1998 killed 4,150 people, and forced more than 18 million people out of their homes and caused economic losses of 255 billion yuan (about 38 billion U.S. dollars).