An army of Chinese flood fighters struggled yesterday to plug leaks in the vast dyke network around swollen Dongting Lake, seeking to shield the homes of millions as a flood crest neared and more rain loomed.
But flood control officials around the lake said they were increasingly confident there would be no disaster, despite a flood peak moving down the Yangtze river due to hit the lake this morning and weathermen predicting heavy rain.
On another incongruously hot and sunny day in the battle to contain a lake the size of Luxembourg, huge squads of peasant farmers rushed in sandbags, rocks and soil to shore up weak points in the defensive wall.
But the officials said the lake would have to rise another meter to overwhelm defenses reinforced heavily since 1998, when China's worst summer floods in decades killed 4,000 people.
"This is totally different from 1998. We feel it is safe," Yongji township chief Li Xixue told reporters as he proudly showed off kilometers of new embankments built to contain the flood-prone Yangtze as it flows out of Dongting.
Officials in Hunan said the heavy rains which pounded the southern province for days until a break in the weather on Wednesday were expected to resume today.
But that should mean only that the water level in Dongting Lake would recede more slowly than anticipated.
Nevertheless, officials said they had contingency plans to evacuate 100,000 people if the dykes burst. Teams had toiled throughout the night to plug holes in the dykes.
"By this morning, they were under control," flood control official Hu Xinyao said.
By last evening, there had been no significant breaches of the defenses, officials said.
China's summer floods have killed more than 900 people already this year and even if Dongting's dykes hold, the danger will be far from over.
The Yangtze flood crest will roll on downriver toward Wuhan, a city of more than 7 million people already working frantically to shore up its defenses.
Then it will drive into Poyang Lake -- not much smaller than Dongting's 2,700km2 -- which is reported to be already 1.10m above danger level.
Upstream, the controversial Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric project, is meant to bring the Yangtze under control, but will not be completed until 2009.
In the meantime, it is up to the peasant army, many carrying picks and hoes, to ensure that Dongting's reinforced dykes stand firm.
The work squads, some numbering 10,000, have not always been successful.
Witnesses said at least one small village 10km south of Yueyang, a city near the lake's northeast shore, had been submerged after a minor breach of a dyke.
Nevertheless, the mood in the area was generally calm, despite the fact that the homes of 10 million people could be swamped if Dongting bursts its banks and pours across the surrounding flat, fertile farmland.
While tens of thousands have been evacuated from the area, many in cities like Yueyang are staying, hoping water levels will drop before there is a catastrophe.
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