Floodwaters in China creep over giant Buddha’s toes for first time in 70 years

Floods in southwest China have forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate in recent days, with water levels rising over the toes of a 1,200-year-old giant statue of Buddha for the first time since Mao Zedong swept the Communists to power in 1949.

Southwest China's Sichuan province raised the flood emergency to its highest level for the first time on record, warning water in some areas was guaranteed to be at least 5m above flood protection levels.

Seasonal flooding hits large swathes of China each year, but the rainfall levels this year have been the highest in decades, displacing two million people and leaving more than 200 dead or missing.

Officials said more than 100,000 people were evacuated so far this week out of the Leshan region of Sichuan alone, on the upper reaches of the Yangtze river.

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Water lapped at the toes of the 71m Leshan Giant Buddha – an 8th century statue carved into a mountainside at a point where three rivers converge – as rescue workers and volunteers used sandbags to try to protect the Unesco world heritage site.

State media said it was the first time water levels had reached as high as the feet of the giant Buddha since the People’s Republic of China was formed by Mao Zedong in 1949.

An ancient local saying forewarns that if the Buddha's toes get immersed, the provincial capital of Chengdu and its surrounding plains are sure to flood.

Some streets in Chengdu were turned into rivers this week, following several days of record-breaking deluges.

Landslides blocked roads and destroyed homes across the region, and in some low-lying areas rooftops and treetops were all that could be seen protruding from the flooded plains.

Typhoon Higos

Compounding China's weather woes this week was the arrival of Typhoon Higos, which came in from the South China Sea and made landfall in the southern province of Guangdong on Wednesday.

The rapidly rising water levels have prompted safety concerns about the almost 100,000 dams in operation across China.

The Three Gorges Dam, a mass hydroelectric project built in part to mitigate heavy flooding in the Yangtze region, has been at least 10m higher than its official warning level for the past month.

The ministry of water resources said that the Three Gorges project would see water inflows rise to 74,000 cubic metres per second on Thursday, the largest volume recorded since it was built in 2003.

With unprecedented water levels, the dam was forced to increase water discharge volumes this week to 46,000 cubic metres per second, co-ordinating with dams down river to retain the flood water, officials said.

Last month authorities had to blast open part of a dam on the Chuhe river in Anhui province to release dangerously high levels as a precautionary measure, channelling the released water into areas downstream and forcing tens of thousands of residents to evacuate their homes.