Two dams collapse in Inner Mongolia, flooding farmland
- Residents evacuated but no casualties reported after infrastructure fails under pressure from heavy rain
- More than 16,000 people affected and bridges destroyed in downpours, authorities say
Two dams in China’s northwestern region of Inner Mongolia collapsed after torrential rain, the water ministry said on Monday, highlighting the safety risks posed by ageing infrastructure during the summer flood season.
The dams, in the Inner Mongolian city of Hulunbuir, collapsed on Sunday afternoon. They had formed reservoirs with a combined water storage capacity of 46 million cubic metres (1.6 trillion cubic feet), the Ministry of Water Resources said.
People living downstream were evacuated, with no casualties reported, it said.
The ministry said that on average, 87 millimetres (3.4 inches) of rain fell in Hulunbuir over the weekend and as much as 223 millimetres at the Morin Dawa monitoring station.
Thousands displaced by floods in southwest China
Hulunbuir’s city government said on its WeChat account that 16,660 people had been affected, with 21,775 hectares (53,807 acres) of farmland submerged. Bridges and other transport infrastructure had also been destroyed.
Footage posted on Chinese social media showed one of the dams being completely swept away by the water, inundating nearby fields.
China has more than 98,000 reservoirs used to regulate floods, generate power and enable shipping. More than 80 per cent of them are four decades old or older, and some pose a safety risk, the government has acknowledged.
A lack of financial resources safety assessments had not been completed on nearly a third of the total Wei Shanzhong, deputy water resources minister, said this year.
