Heilongjiang issues flood warnings for areas near Mudanjiang River

Monitoring data at some river sites in Heilongjiang province shows that the water levels have exceeded the warning level, the provincial hydrology and water resource center alerted on Friday.

As a result of the strong rainfall, the water level at the No 2 hydrologic station on the Mudanjiang River in Mudanjiang city has reached 229.01 meters, exceeding the warning water level by 0.01 meters, and the water level shows a rising trend, CCTV News reported on Friday.

As the No 1 flood on Mudanjiang River has formed, local government urged residents to strengthen prevention and pay attention to risks along the river.

On Friday morning, the Heilongjiang Provincial Department of Natural Resources and the Heilongjiang Meteorological Bureau jointly issued a series of red, orange and yellow warnings for meteorological risks of geological disasters.

Affected by heavy rainfall, from 10 am on Friday to 8 pm on Saturday, regions including parts of Harbin and the whole city of Mudanjiang will have a high meteorological risk of geological disasters (red alert).

Some other regions received an orange alert or a yellow alert for the prevention of landslides, debris flows and other geological disasters caused by heavy rainfall.

Heavy rainfall has also affected parts of Wuchang, a county-level city in Harbin, which is famous for its high-quality rice, Southern Urban Daily reported on Thursday.

Farmers in the city told Southern Urban Daily some rice fields were flooded, which will have an adverse impact on rice during the current rice heading and flowering period.

Zhang Wenshuang, a farmer in Leyuan village, planted 6.67 hectares of rice this year.

"As of Thursday, around three hectares of my farmland have flooded," he said. "I had a yield of 30,000 kilograms of rice that sold 200,000 yuan ($27,846.6) last year."

"The constant rain may cause failure of production in the autumn," he said. "It is difficult to avoid losing money."