Jiang Says Chinese Flood Disaster at ‘Crucial Stage’

President Jiang Zemin urged the Chinese people to rally together in the fight against summer floods that have affected one-fifth of the population, killing more than 2,000 people and leaving millions homeless.

Flooding has begun along the lower reaches of the Yellow River, which runs across north-central China. The river has been the source of particularly disastrous floods over the centuries.

Jiang, who traveled last week to flooded areas along the Yangtze River farther to the south, warned that after more than six weeks of flooding, the disaster was reaching a “crucial stage.”

Millions of people have been stranded on sweltering dikes along the raging Yangtze with minimal shelter, clean water or food. Jiang urged relief workers to ensure social order and guard against the spread of disease, the state-run New China News Agency reported.

Floods raged in northeastern China on Saturday, while swollen rivers crushed levees and threatened Daqing, a major industrial city.

Heavy rains in Heilongjiang province, which borders Russia, were expected to bring the worst floods since 1949 to the provincial capital of Harbin, the news agency said.

China’s Cabinet issued an urgent order Saturday warning that more had to be done to prevent disease.

“Historical experience tells us that major disasters often lead to epidemics,” said the order carried by the news agency.

Government officials insist that apart from a few outbreaks of infectious diseases, no epidemics have occurred in flooded areas.

Thousands of medical teams are handing out food, water purification tablets and medical supplies.

Meanwhile, state radio reported that Li Peng, chairman of the National People’s Congress and former premier, had traveled to Heilongjiang province to observe the flood fight.

At Daqing, a city of 2.3 million people and China’s largest oil-producing area, 355 of 20,000 oil wells were waterlogged due to flooding, the news agency reported. Soldiers and residents had abandoned efforts to repair dikes that burst Friday and Saturday and were concentrating on shoring up other levees protecting the oil field.