Flood in rolling downstream the mighty Amur-Heilong River. In Khabarovsk, authorities completed the construction of a temporary dam in the Zaton area. A sand construction of 180 meters in length must withstand the onslaught of the flood, the scale of which exceeded all the most pessimistic forecasts of hydrologists, but still is 1.5 meters lower than famous flood of 2013.
According to the regional government, the protective structure began to be built on August 3, immediately after it became known that the level of the Amur River in Khabarovsk could rise to seven meters. “In order to bring down the wave, if it is high, we will put a loaded barge in front of our structure, which was made in emergency mode. We will definitely use pumps if the level rises in Zaton –a port where locals repair the river vessels., ”said Valery Nemytov, Minister of Transport and Road Facilities of the Khabarovsk Territory. After the flood, experts say, the dam can be dismantled in a matter of days. That is why sand was used for its construction, and not other materials.
As additional precaution the Archbishop of Khaabarovsk served a mass on the main protective dyke and ordered the parish to repent all sins in the wake of the natural disaster.
According to Russian media Khabarovsk Krai Governor Sergey Furgal addressed his counterpart from Heilongjiang Province in China with a request to reduce water release from reservoirs and contain flood waters in Songhuajiang basin. The Heilongjiang Governor, whose territory is being hit much worse than any province in Russia, still responded with a promise to “undertake every possible measure” to reduce release of water downstream.
The RwB experts are not aware of any sizeable reservoir on Songhua River in Heilongjiang Province that has capacity to “control release of water”. Therefore we assume that the reservoir in question belongs to a relatively modest Lianhua hydropower dam on Mudanjiang – the tributary to Songhua river. Most of reservoirs capable to control floodwaters are located in Jilin Province and one is shared with Inner Mongolia.
Sources: Russian press.