2010-07-27 16:27

YICHANG, Hubei - Vessels' transit through the Yangtze River's Three Gorges Dam has been suspended for the second time this month as engineers at the dam brace for the second flood waters of the year to hit.

The water flow rate through the dam will peak at 56,000 cubic meters per second on Wednesday, said a Three Gorges Corporation official.

At 5 pm Sunday, the flow rate was 40,000 cubic meters per second.

The flow rate hit 48,500 cubic meters per second at 8 am Tuesday.

Shipping services were suspended at 10 pm Monday. They will resume once the flow rate drops to 45,000 cubic meters per second.

More than 100 vessels are waiting either side of the dam.

Shipping services were first suspended at 11 am on July 19 for the first peak flow of the year on July 20, when water flow rates reached 70,000 cubic meters per second. That flow rate was more than that during the 1998 floods that killed 4,150 people. It was also the highest flow rate since the dam became fully operational in 2009.

The dam reopened on July 22, two days after the peak flow.

As of Tuesday, accumulated precipitation since June 16 in 70 percent of the drainage areas of the Yangtze River had exceeded 50 millimeters, after three rounds of rainstorms, said Cai Qihua, deputy head of the Yangtze River Flood Control Office.

Separately, in Wuhan, capital city of Central China's Hebei province, water levels on the Hanjiang River have stayed above the danger level for seven days now, said an official in the hydrology bureau of Changjiang Water Resources Commission.

The water level is expected to reach 30.5 meters at the river's Xingou Station, which will be the second highest level since 1998.