China's Chongqing ups emergency flood response level

CHONGQING -- The southwest Chinese megacity Chongqing heightened its emergency flood response to level three on Monday, as many rivers have swollen due to sustained downpours.

Flooding at the Caijia station of Sunxi River, Jiangjin district, reached 225.25 meters at its peak at 11:00 am Monday, 0.38 meters above the warning level, according to data from the Chongqing hydrological monitoring station.

The monitoring station at 12:50 pm Monday issued an orange flood alert, the second-highest alert in the country's four-tier color-coded weather warning system, for the Wucha station of Qijiang River.

It predicted the water at the Wucha station would rise significantly over the next 10 hours, and is likely to hit 0.5 meters above the safety guarantee level, an increase of 6.6 meters to 7.1 meters.

The municipal water authority said it had notified the affected areas and urged them to make evacuation arrangements where necessary and strengthen both their monitoring of and warnings for flash floods.