Dry Qingdao tapping Yellow River water for Games

Beijing, Nov 21: China has begun storing water pumped from the Yellow River in Olympic co-host city Qingdao to guarantee supplies in the parched northern port during next year's Games, local media reported.

Qingdao, which will host Olympic sailing events, will pump water from the Yellow River equal to almost a year's annual consumption in the city of 7.7 million residents over the next 10 days, Xinhua news agency said, citing a senior water engineer.

''The water will be saved for domestic and industrial use and will alleviate water supply pressures on Qingdao during the 2008 Olympics,'' the agency quoted Liu Jing, a senior engineer with the Yellow River Engineering Bureau, as saying.

Like much of northern China, Qingdao, which lies more than 300 km from the Yellow River, faces water shortages which have become more acute due to economic and population growth, the agency said.

Annual water consumption had nearly doubled since the early 1990s in Qingdao, which enjoys only one-seventh of the country's average water resources, it added.

Ensuring adequate drinking water during the Olympics has also proved a headache for Beijing, where a prolonged drought and the prospect of 2.5 million Games-related visitors have seen officials scrambling to divert water from reservoirs in neighbouring Hebei province.

Beijing authorities spent 430 million yuan (58 million dollars) diverting water from a local river to replenish water at its Olympic rowing and canoeing venue after it dried up, state media reported last month, and have installed thousands of ''electronic eyes'' to guard against leakage and waste in local water pipes.

UNI