CHINA: War on the Yellow River

China's mighty Yellow River has always been a cruel and capricious neighbor to the 140 million people—a fourth of China's populace—who live near its banks. In the past 3,000 years it has flooded more than 1,500 times, often inundating whole counties and killing hundreds of thousands of people. It greedily eats up millions of tons of precious Chinese earth each year, and contributes to droughts by draining the eroded earth. Though Chinese peasants have dreamed longingly of a day when its muddy waters would run crystal-clear to the sea, the "River of Sorrow" has defied every attempt to conquer...

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