Floodwaters kept pouring into the Three Gorges reservoir with a flow rate close to the location's record high in 1998 for a long period over the weekend, amid alert-triggering and even higher water levels in the Yangtze River's middle and lower reaches.

As of 8 am Saturday, the flow of water into the reservoir reached 61,000 cubic meters per second, which had approached the highest level that Yichang, the city where the reservoir is located, endured when it suffered devastating floods in 1998, according to the Ministry of Water Resources.

The rate remained unchanged until at least 6 pm Saturday, and figures on the website of the Changjiang Water Resources Commission showed that it had declined to 53,000 cubic meters per second by 2 pm Sunday.

Yichang, Hubei province, is the demarcation point dividing the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze.