Safety measures

Thanks to the measures taken by the authorities, Qu, the Langlou villager, is no longer frightened of floods.

Chatting in the pavilion, she said, "In the past, every time the floods came, there were huge losses and rescuers worked desperately to get us out of the water."

Born in an area standing on high ground, Qu did not move into Wangjiaba township, one of four in the Mengwa Flood Diversion Area, until she married her husband in Langlou village.

In 2000, the local government launched a project to rebuild villages in the diversion area. Qu's two-story house, paid for by the government and standing on ground more than 10 meters higher than nearby fields, was completed in 2003.

Guo Chang, an official from the Funan transport bureau, who was sent to Langlou to take care of the villagers, said, "As the residents have all been relocated, flood relief work has become much easier.

"More than 300 villagers in Langlou have hukou, or household registration, but only 59 people－mostly seniors and children－are living in the village," he said, as many people have moved to cities across the country for work.

Yue Lei, a senior Funan official, said some villagers run fish, cattle or poultry farms in fields standing on low ground.

On Sunday night, the local government issued an emergency notice, ordering people from these areas to evacuate.

Yue said more than 2,000 people, along with property that could be moved, were relocated overnight before the sluice gates were opened on Monday morning.

Even though the gates were not opened until everyone had been moved to safety, the operation was still a race against time.

Lang Maoyong, who returned home several days ago from Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, said, "The government told us to store necessities two days before the sluice gates were opened."

Chen Hongdeng, an armed police officer from Fuyang, who led a team carrying supplies to Langlou by boat on Tuesday, said the officers, many other government employees and volunteers helped with the evacuation on Sunday night.

The main task now is to ensure supplies reach the villagers and to patrol dikes around the Mengwa Flood Diversion Area, Chen added.

Yue said, "As the water will remain in the area for a while, according to our estimates, we must remain alert to the possibility of the dikes being damaged.

"The biggest losses will come in the agricultural sector, as crops and farms have been submerged," she said.