Emergency response deals with Dongting Lake breach

Chinese central authorities and military urgently responded and dispatched multiple forces to Huarong county in Hunan province over the weekend, where a breach occurred at Dongting Lake, China's second-largest freshwater lake.

On Friday afternoon, continuous heavy rain in northern Hunan caused a breach at the dike in Tuanzhou township, Huarong. The breach expanded to a maximum width of over 200 meters on Saturday.

According to a news release from the Ministry of Water Resources on Saturday, its leadership decided that the breach would be sealed immediately once the water levels inside and outside the dike were balanced. The Dongting Lake connects major rivers in Hunan to the Yangtze River.

A series of measures were also deployed by the ministry, including the full-scale evacuation of people from the safety zone, immediate disconnection of all local power supplies and enhanced on-site hydrological monitoring of the breach.

Additionally, the ministry asked its subordinate departments to prepare for the "worst-case scenario", thoroughly assessing the potential impact area and population of the breach and quickly proposing plans for constructing a "secondary defense line" based on the terrain.

The minister Li Guoying, who is also vice commander of the National Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters, led a working group to the breach site in Tuanzhou to oversee the emergency response efforts on Saturday.

According to The Paper, by Saturday afternoon, the water levels on both sides of the dike had nearly equalized, and the effort to seal the breach had begun.

In addition, a working group led by Wang Daoxi, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Emergency Management and the Ministry of Water Resources, arrived at the site to guide local first-response efforts, the Ministry of Emergency Management said on Saturday.

By Saturday afternoon, over 1,400 personnel from the national comprehensive firefighting and rescue team were involved in the emergency response. The ministry's National Disaster Engineering Emergency Rescue Center dispatched 350 professional rescue personnel and 98 main battle equipment units to the scene.

Furthermore, following the breach, over 900 soldiers and officers from the People's Liberation Army and the People's Armed Police, along with militia members, were immediately mobilized for rescue operations, including sealing the breach and rescuing and relocating affected residents, PLA Daily, the Chinese military's flagship media outlet, reported on Saturday.

By Saturday evening, the Armed Police officers engaged in sealing the breach had operated machinery to dump over 6,000 cubic meters of stone, continuously advancing the right bank of the breach, the report said.