WUHAN, March 24 (Xinhua)-- A modern anti-flood directing system is expected to be established along the Yangtze River, the longest in China, in next five years, said the Yangtze River Water Resources Committee.

    An official with the committee said here recently that the directing system will be a high-tech one composed by an automatic hydrology testing system, an alarm system and an information collection network.

    The official said the system can report timely hydrology information of all major reaches and reservoirs along the Yangtze River, so as to ensure necessary measures to be taken upon the occurrence of flood.

    The anti-flood directing system is one of China's series of anti-flood projects to be taken along the Yangtze River.

    The committee said based on the problems exposed during the big flood in the Yangtze River in 1998, the committee has made an anti-flood program of the Yangtze River which lists a package of anti-flood projects to be launched in the future.

    According to the program, the committee will further promote the construction of flood-reporting and information-transmitting systems along the river, and also strengthen relevant legislation in the coming years.

    A heavy summer flooding swept through the Yangtze River valley in south China, and Songhua and Nenjiang river valleys in north China in 1998, which killed 3,656 people and destroyed property valued at over 264 billion yuan.

    As one of the largest rivers worldwide, the 6,300-kilometre-long Yangtze flows past Qinghai, Tibet, Yunnan, Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu and Shanghai, where it empties into the East China Sea. Enditem