July 7, 2003	Monday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 6,1424

BEIJING, July 6: Officials in the eastern province of Anhui on Sunday evacuated 17,000 people from along the Huaihe River, a tributary of the Yangtze, as its water level reached a record high, state media reported.

Authorities decided to blow up a dike along the river to prevent it from rupturing as the floods worsened in parts of China, Xinhua news agency said.

A provincial flood prevention official who did not want to give his name said the explosion of the dike was carried out around noon.

By 7:00 am Sunday morning the Huaihe reached a level of 26.22 metres, some 22 centimetres more than its previous highest level recorded in 1991, according State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters as quoted by Xinhua.

The water levels are expected to keep rising, Xinhua said.

The floodgates at Wangjiaba, also on the Huaihe, were closed Saturday night after being opened two days earlier to direct the water to a run-off lake which was filled to within just nine centimetres of its maximum level.

A state of emergency was declared at midnight Friday in the region where, according to the Chinese weather service, wet conditions will revail until July 10.

Elsewhere, a section of the main Beijing-Shanghai railway remained closed more than ten hours after the Chuxian district was flooded on Saturday.

Some 460 workers and more than 200 soldiers have been sent to the area to fix the situation, Xinhua said.

In Nanjing, capital of the neighbouring province of Jiangsu, the heaviest rains in 20 years have deposited some 194.5 millimetres of water on the city, it said.—AFP