China: 700-year-old temple survives raging floods in Hubei province

Constructed on a rocky island on the Yangtze River in Wuhan, a 700-year-old Guanyinge temple in China has been able to stand the raging floods and has caught the attention of the internet. Shared by a user Jennifer Zeng, the nearly 10 seconds clip shows a solitary Buddhist temple standing intact submerged in water level reaching an alarming 27.73 meters, 0.43 meters over the warning line in Hubei province. The Internet has been rendered speechless at the strength of the monument that has been able to survive many such calamities in the past 700 years including the recent floods that have claimed over 140 lives in China.  

Prompting immediate evacuation of almost 15 million, the turbulent floods on July 19 engulfed nearly every structure in the region. However, the temple which was built in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and then reconstructed in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) on a dragon-shaped rock in the middle of the Yangtze River remained unimpacted by the massive flooding that caused heavy destruction. Shot by the by @Yichanjun, an ancient architecture enthusiast, the clip depicted the entire area covered with water, while the temple, that lived the 1998 floods that killed nearly 4,000 people still stood unharmed by either the torrential rain or the dangerous water currents.  

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Pressure on Three Gorges Dam

While China blocked passage to more than 100 expressways through the Hunan Province and cancelled 249 flights at the Beijing Capital International Airport, the flood warning reached the ‘yellow alert’ on a four-tier warning system. The alert is the third-highest level, as per state reports. Torrential rains have also put pressure on the Three Gorges Dam as the rate of water flow in the reservoir hit the annual record utilizing 55,000 square meters capacity. In an out of control situation, the Yangtze system rivers broke their banks as helicopters were rushed to throw heavy boulders into the breach to stop the gushing water that raged into the Hubei province, according to reports.  

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