Flood in Songhua River in September 1957

The Songhua River basin has been continuously flooded in 1956 and 1957. In July 1957 and August, most areas of the basin had been cloudy and rainy. The maximum number of rain days was up to 45d. A lot of heavy rain happened in the west side (right side) tributaries of the lower reaches of Nenjiang and the basin of second Songhua River. There were floods and even catastrophic flood occured in the main trunk streams and tributaries in these basin. The upstream of second Songhua River, YaLu River, Chaoer River and Taoerhe River which were tributaries of Nenjiang River appeared great flood that only occurred once in 20 to 50 years. Since the founding of new China , the largest flood emerged in Harbin Railway Station which was in the main stream of Songhua River.

The measured maximum water level and maximum flow of the Harbin Railway Station in the main stream of the Songhua River in 1957 were more than the maximum flood occurred in the history of 1932. According to the statistics from the department concerned, the flood area reached 930 thousand Hm² in that year. The affected population reached 3 million 700 thousand. The number of deaths reached 75. The houses were washed down 22878 and the grain production was reduced by 1 billion 200 million kg, all of which resulted in direct and indirect economic losses of about 240 million yuan.