Swollen China river prompts massive evacuation

BEIJING, July 12 (Reuters) Almost half a million people have been evacuated from the projected floodwaters of China's Huai River, which is expected to see its worst flooding since 1954, state media said today.

Most are villagers from the dirt-poor eastern province of Anhui with the rest from Henan to the northwest and Jiangsu to the east.

''The three provincial authorities have mobilised 511,000 people to patrol the Huai embankments and issue emergency warnings,'' Xinhua news agency quoted the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters as saying.

Thirteen huge sluices at Wangjiaba, a key hydrological station on the river after it flows out of Henan into Anhui, were opened to divert waters to adjacent the Mengwa buffer zone, home to 150,000 people.

The Huai originates in Henan and runs east between the Yellow River and the Yangtze River, cutting through Henan, Anhui and Jiangsu before entering the Yangtze at the vast Hongze Lake.

The pressure on the embankments along both banks of the river has been mounting, threatening key cities and railway lines on the middle and lower reaches.

Tens of millions of residents across China are grappling with the threat or aftermath of floods that have killed at least 131 people in the past two weeks.

China's flood season is notoriously deadly. At least 360 people have died in floods and related disasters across the country this summer and more than 4 million hectares (15,440 sq miles) of crops had been destroyed.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao urged local governments on Wednesday to improve weather monitoring, give priority to people's safety and relocate people in flood-hit areas.

REUTERS PDS BST0712