Floods on the upper reaches of China's Yangtze River forced authorities to evacuate more than 100,000 people and threatened a 1,200-year-old world heritage site.
Staff, police and volunteers used sandbags to try to protect the 71-meter Leshan Giant Buddha, as muddy flood water rose over its toes for the first time since 1949, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
According to Reuters, the statue is a UNESCO World Heritage site in southwestern Sichuan province.
The Yangtze Water Resources Commission, the government body that oversees the river, declared a red alert late on Tuesday, saying water at some monitoring stations was expected to exceed "guaranteed" flood protection levels by over five meters.
The Three Gorges Project, a massive hydroelectric facility designed in part to tame floods on the Yangtze, was expected to see water inflows rise to 74,000 cubic meters per second on Wednesday, the highest since it was built, the Ministry of Water Resources said.
Authorities have been at pains to show that the cascade of giant dams and reservoirs built along the Yangtze's upper reaches have shielded the region from the worst of the floods this year.
