Even as flood waters swept around a 700-year-old Guanyinge temple in China's Wuhan, the ancient structure stood strong against the strong gushes of water. The temple is built on a rocky island on Yangtze River in Wuhan and the video of it standing defiant amid inclement weather has gone viral on the Internet.
Heavy rains since June have left over 140 people dead or missing and forced nearly 15 million to evacuate their homes in China, reports AFP.
According to report by Taiwan News, the flood levels have risen high enough to submerge every structure in sight with the exception of this ancient temple.
The video was shared on Twitter by user, @jenniferatntd, who said, "This is what you call "as solid as iron"".
This is what you call "as solid as iron". A more than 700-year-old Buddhist Temple (Guanyin, orAvalokitesvara Pavilion) in Erzhou, #Hubei province in #China has survived all the floods in more than 700 years, and still holds up in the historical flood on July 14, 2020. pic.twitter.com/oOhfUmRWHW
— Jennifer Zeng 曾錚 (@jenniferatntd) July 14, 2020
The Buddhist temple was first constructed during the Song Dynasty and rebuilt in the Yuan Dynasty. It has reportedly survived centuries of floods, and most recently in 1998 and 2017.
Authorities have adopted measures such as diverting water into back-up resevoirs to keep levels manageable as major rivers and lakes hit record highs.
In Anhui, a dam on the Chu river was demolished Sunday as water levels inched close to historic highs.
Local authorities said the action was taken to ensure the safety of people living nearby.
"Affected by continuous downpours and upstream flows, the water level of the Chu River, a tributary of the Yangtze River, has moved from a slow rise to a sharp one," local media said Monday.
The blasting of the dam was expected to reduce the level of the Chu River by around 70 centimetres (28 inches), reported the state-run Global Times.
Chinese media said the released water was being channelled into two downstream storage ponds.
A total of 35 rivers and lakes in Anhui saw high water marks exceed warning levels by Saturday noon -- including the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers -- reported the official Xinhua news agency.
Over the weekend the Three Gorges Dam also opened three floodgates after the water rose more than 15 metres above flood level.
Last week soldiers erected sandbag flood barriers in a city near China's largest freshwater lake after the heaviest rainfall in nearly six decades drenched the Yangtze River basin.
(with inputs from AFP )
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