A burst dyke on China's flood-swollen Yangtze river unleashed a vicious torrent which swept hundreds of soldiers and civilians to their deaths, sources in Hong Kong said yesterday.
The report came as heavy rains in the river's upper reaches formed a new flood peak and police reported looting, robbery and theft were all on the rise as people took advantage of the chaos.
The dyke ruptured on Saturday in the Jiayu district of Hubei province, some 70 km from the city of Wuhan, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said.
Group spokesman Mr Frank Lu quoted sources in Wuhan as saying the torrent from the rupture "surprised" 150 soldiers patrolling the dyke and residents of Paizhou and Hezhen counties, drowning hundreds of people.
This year's floods in the Yangtze river basin have been the worst since 1954, when 33,000 people died. More than 1,200 people have already been reported killed in flooding across southern China this summer.
The Chinese authorities said on Monday they had begun blowing up dykes to flood countryside areas in a bid to stop flooding in key cities. "It can't yet be determined whether the dyke bursts resulted from the blowing up of the dykes," said Mr Lu.
The deluge was large enough to drop the Yangtze's water levels at Wuhan by nearly 10 cm he said.
An official newspaper in Guangzhou confirmed that a serious dyke burst occurred but provided no details of casualties.
The Yangcheng Evening News said a 700-metre-wide hole erupted in the dyke - a secondary defence set back from the main levee on the Yangtze's bank.
The report said officials rescued 20,000 people from the torrent. It said a leak was detected before the accident, and that 300 soldiers dispatched to the scene arrived too late.
Authorities had already evacuated 10,000 people from the area, but the two counties are home to more than 560,000 people. The dyke burst flooded 100 square km, the newspaper said.
An official with the flood-control bureau in Jiayu contacted by telephone said the dyke rupture occurred but that only one soldier died.
Adding to the misery of flood victims, police yesterday said gangs of looters had started preying on homes left unprotected.
"Cases such as looting, robbery and stealing are on the rise, as troublemakers are taking advantage of the severe flooding," Mr Li Weihe, director of the Public Security Bureau of Anxiang County in Hunan province told the Xinhua news agency.
Weather reports pointed to no relief from the flooding. A new flood peak was building in the Yangtze's upper reaches and a tropical storm was approaching. At Wuhan, the river rose to 28.9 metres above the riverbed.
Xinhua News Agency reported that dykes in the Yangtze basin were in danger of giving way in 3,200 locations, 1,800 of which would cause "major ruptures".