A heavy storm caused catastrophic fl oods in the summer of 2010 throughout southern China. Fu River, the second largest river in Jiangxi Province, with a length of 312 km and a drainage area of 15,800 km~2, experienced a 50-year return flood. A 347 m long segment of levee, Changkai Levee, breached on the evening of 21 June 2010 and 65,000 out of 100,000 r esidents in four towns were besieged by the breaching inflow. The breach was later bl ocked in 58 hours. This paper first introduces the process of the levee brea ch and studies the as sociated failure mechanisms. The main reasons for the fail ure are the low design standard (i.e. the design criterion is 20-year retu rn flood while the actual flo od reached the 50-year return level), erodible sandy soil conditions in the levee, and the scour of levee by the rapid water flow nearly vertical to the levee. Subsequently the procedures of rescuing the residents and blocking the breach are described. Finally why so m any residents were besieged but no casualty was caused is explained.
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