![]() However, this years summer rains broke all records and the unprecedented phenomenon of continued rains for two months in Chinas upper north-eastern regions, resulted in an unprecedented flood situation which has been compared to Chinas floods during 1954 when the death toll had been 30,000. These also include a total of 3,500-km-long dykes built along the mainstream of the Yangtze river and, just like the famous China Wall, some of these could be traced back to the very beginning of Chinese civilisation. 1 Statistics from the Yangtze River Water Control Committee show that, through successive operations in Chinas 5,000-year-long history, embankments with a total length of about 40,000 km have been constructed along the main stream of the Yangtze and its many tributaries to hold the swollen flow in these rivers. The significance attached to Chinas Three Gorges Project can be cited to explain the centrality of Yangtze river management in the thinking of Chinas leaders. Accordingly, flood control measures in the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze have always been regarded as important components of Chinas national survival, and successive rulers in China have always considered these as a critical element of their national development and reconstruction. To recall, the 3,900-mile-long main Yangtze river, which criss-crosses Chinas Hubei and Hunan provinces, happens to be worlds third longest river. The combined effects of Chinas environment degradation, deforestation and water logging in its upper north-eastern regions and the ongoing changes in global weather conditions like the El Nino weather phenomenonleading to widespread floods in much of the Asian continent, including Russia, the Koreas, Bangladesh and Indiaresulted in unprecedented torrential rains and storms flooding the Yangtze river and its main tributaries during this summer. Chinas Floods:PLAs Largest Operations Ever
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