At 8:30 am Monday, the Wangjiaba Dam opened all of its 13 sluice gates to discharge floodwaters to the Mengwa Flood Diversion Area in an effort to relieve the pressure downstream.

The diversion area, a 180-square-kilometer basin, can hold nearly 750 million cubic meters of water.

The area, located in Fuyang, Anhui, is home to over 190,000 people. Most of them, however, are migrant workers in other regions.

"Over 2,000 people in the area were evacuated to safe places Sunday night," said Lu Haitao, an official on Huaihe River management at the Anhui Department of Water Resources.