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China is fighting a "life and death" battle against rising floodwaters which have posed a serious threat to the country's oil hub at Daqing. The Yangtze river is flowing above the danger mark. Government officials said they would blast the dyke to save cities downstream.

More than 300,000 people have been evacuated from Gong's county in Hubei province in pre-paration for the flood diversion, according to officials. The floods have already killed about 2,000 people in the country, causing property loss of billions of dollars (Down To Earth, Vol 7, No 7).

Hood waters have so far inun-dated 1,217 oil wells in a marshland outside Daqing, forcing the closure of 527 wells in a city that accounts for half of the country's oil production. There are more than 25,000 oil wells in the area. Daqing produced 60.9 million tonne of oil in 1997, but production had slowed to just 6,821 tonne during the past week. It is reported that about 11,000 oil workers and their families are trapped at the Zhaoyuan and Tailai oil fields on the banks of the Nenjuang with no power, water or food.

According to Chao Jiping, a senior scientist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, La Nina, a weather phenomenon which follows the El Nino, is the cause for this year's massive floods in China. The La Nina phenomenon which brings colder-than-normal surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean has arrived in China and this is the major cause of this year's floods, Jiping says.

Records have shown that the background of this year's floods in China was surprisingly similar to the one took place in 1954 when serious flooding occurred in the Yangtze river. An El Nino weather phenomenon appeared in 1953 which was followed by a La Nina in 1954. This year's La Nina also followed last year's El Nino, which is said to be the strongest in this century.

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