쓰촨 대홍수에 싼샤댐 다시 '초긴장'...유입량 사상 최대

China's Three Gorges dam is seeing its highest water levels ever after months of torrential rain overwhelmed the country's flood defenses.
Chinese state media is calling it a "once-in-a-century" event.
Lee Seung-jae reports.
The past few months in southern China have seen the region's heaviest rainfall since 1998,... when floods killed more than 3-thousand people.
With the upper reaches of the Yangtze River facing their fifth round of flooding this summer,... Chinese state media outlets are calling it a "once-in-a-century" event.
According to Chinese state media,... the flow rate of water into the massive Three Gorges dam on Thursday was 75-thousand cubic meters a second,... shattering the previous 2012 record of 71-thousand-200.
By early Thursday,... the water level at Ciqikou Port on Chongqing's Jialing River reached 192-point-5 meters,... 8-point-5 meters above the guaranteed water level.
This comes as Chongqing upgraded it flood-control response to Level 1 on Tuesday,... the highest level on China's four-tier emergency response system for floods.
However, with more torrential rain in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality,... the flood is overflowing onto some roads and disrupting city traffic.
Also, as of Wednesday,... floods had displaced some 490-thousand people in Sichuan,... damaging 165-thousand hectares of cropland,... as well as destroying 2,155 buildings and causing over 2-billion U.S. dollars in direct economic losses.
The Three Gorges Dam, which was built to withstand a water level of 175 meters,... is closing in on peak levels.
Officials say with the ongoing rain,... water levels are expected to reach 165-point-5 meters by Saturday.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has been touring Anhui province,... another badly hit area,... said China has fought natural disasters for thousands of years,... and will continue to fight this latest disaster, as well.
Lee Seung-jae, Arirang News.