Country faces grim flood season

"Generally speaking, damaged projects in southern parts of the country have been repaired. ... Due to various reasons, including effects from the COVID-19 pandemic, a few damaged projects have yet to be repaired," he said. "We will ask local authorities to strictly implement flood control measures and ensure safety during the flood season."

Ye said the ministry has dispatched six teams to five provincial regions to guide local flood control work. It will also enhance monitoring and issue warnings in a timely manner while intensifying the coordination of water conservancy projects to help store floodwaters to cope with the grim situation.

However, he said the country still faces challenges in managing its large number of reservoirs and protecting people from mountain torrents during the flood season, and that the ministry has taken a series of measures to address those challenges.

Over 94,000 of the country's 98,000 reservoirs are small. Some of them have become vulnerable and may fail to prevent floods as they are designed. Aside from clarifying people in charge of flood control for all the reservoirs, the ministry has asked these reservoirs to discharge water in advance so that they could help store floodwaters while ensuring safety, he said.

While carrying out online monitoring for the over 4,000 medium and large-sized reservoirs, the ministry has also been rolling out surprise inspections of all reservoirs to ensure they implement flood control measures as required. So far, 11,251 smallsized reservoirs have been visited, he noted.

"We are very worried about mountain torrents, as they usually happen all of a sudden and cannot be effectively prevented with engineering projects," he explained, adding that mountain torrents are to blame for over 70 percent of casualties caused by floods in recent years.

In cooperation with the China Meteorological Administration, the ministry now could issue warnings for 2,076 counties that are prone to mountain torrents.

In addition to asking local authorities to ensure normal operation of the facilities needed to publish and receive the warnings, the ministry has joined hands with the three major telecom operators to send warnings via mobile phones to people in areas with high risks of mountain torrents, he said.