Shanghai: Two Dams in the northwestern region of China from Mongolia Batubal have collapsed after heavy rains, said the Ministry of Water on Monday, highlighting the risk of safety incurred by aging infrastructure during the summer flood season.
Dam, in the city of Mongolia inner Hulunbuir, collapsed on Sunday afternoon.
They have formed a reservoir with a combined water storage capacity of 46 million cubic meters, said the Ministry of Water Resources.
The people who lived below were evacuated, without victims reported, he said.
The ministry said that on average, 87 millimeters of rain fell in Hulunbuir during the weekend and as many as 223 millimeters at Morin Dawa monitoring station.
Extreme weather has hit several parts of the world in recent weeks with flooding in Europe and heat waves in North America, adding to concerns about climate change.
The City Government of Hulunbuir said the WeChat account that 16,660 people had been affected, with 326,622 MU (53,807 hectares) of submerged agricultural land.
Bridges and other transportation infrastructure have also been destroyed.
Record posted on Chinese social media showed one of the dams which was truly swept away by water, flooded the closest fields.
China has more than 98,000 reservoirs used to regulate flooding, producing energy and facilitating shipping.
More than 80% of them are four decades or older, and some raises the risk of safety, the government has admitted.
The lack of financial resources means that almost a third of the total amount does not have a compulsory safety assessment, Wei Shanzhong, Deputy Minister of Water Resources, told the briefing this year.