Construction of world's largest monitoring network for landslide and mud-rock flow disasters has been completed on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, China's longest river, according to the Yangtze River Water Resources Committee.
The Yangtze valley is vulnerable to such disasters, which cause the deaths of hundreds of people each year.
With 58 monitoring stations and 300 professionals, the monitoring network basically covers all the disaster-prone areas in 38 counties in six provinces.
Over the past ten years, information from the network has helped predict over 100 such disasters, avoiding economic losses of 100 million yuan (US$12 million).
(People's Daily December 10, 2001)
