Breached Chinese lake dike to be sealed by Tuesday noon

On Friday, July 5, a 10-meter breach occurred on a dike along China’s second largest freshwater lake, Dongting Lake, which had quickly widened to 226 meters by the next day.

Restoration work on the embankment was promptly initiated on Saturday afternoon after the water level was stabilized.

By Sunday evening, 101.6 meters of the breached embankment had been repaired, while it was stated on that day by Zhang Yingchun, executive vice governor of the Hunan Province, where the dike is located, that its restoration is expected to be completed by Tuesday noon.

The event caused 5,755 local residents to be evacuated on Saturday, while thankfully, nobody was hurt.

However, the troubles caused by the dike’s failure were far from over as a 14.35 kilometer long levee, located some kilometers behind the main embankment, which was expected to act as a second line of defence showed signs of piping and also had to be repaired.

The Hunan province experienced excessive precipitation earlier in that week, which characteristically caused the Miluo River in the Pingjang country to reach its highest level in 70 years and is most likely the cause behind the dike’s failure.

On the afternoon of Saturday, it was announced by the Ministry of Water Resources that the dikes around China’s largest lake, the Poyang lake, and the ones along the Yangtze River’s lower reaches would be inspected.