Excess water is released from the Three Gorges reservoir on the Yangtze River in Hubei province on Wednesday. [Photo/IC]

Li visits heavily damaged homes, fields, assures help on the way

Premier Li Keqiang on Thursday encouraged Chongqing residents to rebuild flood-damaged homes as the city faces one of its worst floods in history.

Li, while visiting Shuangba village in Chongqing, said that President Xi Jinping's significant instructions on flood prevention and post-disaster reconstruction should be fully implemented, and the safety of people's lives and property should be soundly secured.

The entire village of 8,000 residents, alongside the Fujiang River, a branch of the Yangtze River, was hit by flooding and crops were destroyed.

Li visited flooded houses, waterlogged farmlands and shelters for displaced villagers. He said the Party and government will help villagers overcome their difficulties, adding that he believes they can rebuild if everyone works together.

On Monday, floods hit Chongqing for a fifth time this year after recent heavy rainstorms in the Sichuan Basin in the upper reaches of the Yangtze. Its flood control and drought relief headquarters upgraded its response to the highest level on Tuesday afternoon for the first time ever. The flood's peak began passing through the city on Thursday.

Cuntan station on the Yangtze River in Chongqing saw its highest water level in eight decades on Thursday morning, according to the Chongqing Emergency Response Bureau.

"It is the highest water level since the Cuntan hydrographic station was built in 1939, and it is also the largest inflow of floodwaters into the Three Gorges reservoir," said Zhang Shiming, director of the Upper Reaches Bureau of the Changjiang Water Resources Commission.