China's Yangtze River is facing its first flooding in 2024, with water levels reaching warning stages and major lakes overflowing due to relentless heavy rains, according to the Ministry of Water Resources.
The river is experiencing its 2024 "No.1 Flood," as the water level at Jiujiang, a key monitoring station for the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze, has risen to 20 meters, reaching the warning level at 14:00 on Friday.
Tributaries flowing into Poyang Lake and Dongting Lake, China's two largest freshwater lakes, have seen major flooding. As of 08:00 Saturday, the area of Poyang Lake inundated by the inflow has expanded to 3,620 square kilometers. The intense rainfall has also led to a more than five-meter rise in the water level of Dongting Lake within a span of 10 days, expanding its surface area by approximately 1,400 square kilometers.
The ministry has raised the emergency responses to the flooding to Level III in the provinces of Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei and Hunan on Friday, and urgently sent four additional working teams to the front line to provide guidance to the flood relief.
China has a four-tier flood-control emergency response system, with Level I being the most urgent response, and a four-tier, color-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe warning, followed by orange, yellow and blue.
Copyright CCTV.
