Zhuhai City of?south China's Guangdong
Province, has been activating an emergency system in response
to a crisis in water supply caused by advancing of a grave salt
tide in the river's estuary.
Under the emergency system, an economized use of water is
compulsory. And all water consuming facilities such as swimming
pools, sprinkling landscapes in residential quarters, and services
including car washing businesses and bath centers are temporarily
suspended from water supplies, said Zhong Huiming, deputy director
of the Water Affairs Bureau of Zhuhai, the nearest Chinese mainland
city to Macao.
"We will guarantee a normal use of water for residents in Zhuhai
and Macao at all costs," said Zhong.
The salt tide on the river began on Tuesday, threatening
drinking water security of hundreds of thousands of residents
living in Zhuhai and Macao. The chlorine content in drinking water
sources in Zhuhai has kept rising abruptly.
But the adverse impact of the salt tide on drinking water in
other cities in the densely populated Pearl River Delta, such as
Zhongshan, Guangzhou, Dongguan, Shenzhen and Hong Kong, will be
limited.
The salt tide, the worst of the kind in the past five years, was
caused by factors including less rainfall in the river's drainage
area and a powerful tidal wave produced by an astronomical
phenomenon that the sun, the earth and the moon will be in a line
on Saturday.
Specialists with Guangdong Provincial Astronomers Society
predict that the salt tide in the Pearl River will stay for some
time because of the above mentioned factors.
Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong, and Zhongshan
City, also in Guangdong, are joining Zhuhai to get well prepared
for combating the salt tide.
In the meantime, Guangdong Province and Zhuhai City have been
organizing experts to study details about diverting water from
Beijiang, one of the Pearl River's tributaries, to drive back salt
tide.
It is expected that the actual water diversion will begin
mid-January next year.
The Pearl River, which originates in the Maxiong Mountain inside
Quqing City, southwest China's Yunnan Province, runs
southeastwardly and eventually empties itself into the South China
Sea, is placed the second only after the Yangtze River, the
country's longest, by surface runoff.
(Xinhua News Agency January 1, 2006)