At around 16:00 on July 5, affected by the heavy rainfall in recent days, the Dongting Lake embankment in Yueyang City, Hunan Province, suffered a pipe burst. At 17:00, the embankment broke after the emergency blocking failed. According to preliminary surveys, the width of the breach was about 10 meters. By 23:00, the breach had expanded to more than 100 meters. At 11:00 a.m. on July 6, the water level difference between the inside and outside of the breach was 0.10 meters, and the width was 226 meters.
After the danger occurred, in coordination with the National Disaster Research Institute of the Ministry of Emergency Management and China Aneng Group, our company quickly organized technical personnel and equipment to rush to the front line. After arriving at the scene, we immediately invested in emergency mapping work for flood control and disaster relief.
Drones patrol the embankment to check for pipe bursts and water seepage
The second line of defense is the Qiantuan dike, which is not far from the breach. It is a dike between Tuanzhou and Qiannan embankments, with a total length of about 14.3 kilometers. Some sections of the dike are mainly sandy. Under long-term immersion at high water levels, it is very easy to have dike hazards such as seepage and pipe bursts, which are even more dangerous during the water receding stage. Patrolling the dikes and checking for dangers is the top priority.
Our company actively assisted the National Institute of Disaster Research of the Ministry of Emergency Management in carrying out dike patrol and hazard inspection work. The site was divided into three technical teams, which used drones to patrol the dikes and carried out uninterrupted inspections of the 14.3-kilometer Qiantuan dike twice a day.
The drone embankment patrol equipment integrates surveying-grade lidar, industrial-grade thermal infrared camera and high-resolution visible light camera, and is combined with intelligent embankment hazard identification software. It can operate 24 hours a day, patrol 10 kilometers of embankments per hour, and automatically identify dangerous situations such as pipe bursts and leakages, achieving more accurate, efficient and safer embankment patrol and hazard inspection operations.
Unmanned boats map underwater terrain and help quickly and accurately seal breaches
During the process of sealing the breach of the first flood control levee, the surveying and mapping team actively cooperated with China Aneng Group and adopted a small multi-beam unmanned boat solution to carry out underwater topographic measurement of the breach. Relying on the equipment’s super-strong power of 7.5m/s and the reliable performance of multi-beam measurement after launching and calibration-free, it responded quickly and successfully completed a total of 5 data collection tasks. It provided the command center with real-time underwater topography, cross-section water depth, stone and sand throwing deviation and other accurate data support for judging the progress of the work and adjusting the deployment of dam closure, and used scientific and technological power to help the breach be sealed quickly and accurately!
After 77 hours of continuous fighting without stopping, the breach in the Tuanzhouhuan Dongting Lake embankment was completed at 22:31 on July 8th, 13 hours ahead of schedule.
After the completion of the breach closure, in order to verify whether the width and slope ratio of the embankment slope meet operational standards and ensure the safety of the embankment, an unmanned boat carrying a small multi-beam sonar set sail again. Together with drones, it continuously collects point cloud data of embankment slope ratios both above and below water surface to assist the command center in comprehensively and accurately grasping embankment slopes and monitoring areas prone to settlement. This helps in timely identification of weak points on embankments, eliminating safety hazards, and providing data support for rapid and accurate deployment of embankment reinforcement work.
Emergency response is a race against time. Faced with sudden emergencies, our company promptly responds to the needs, bringing technology “weapons” and rich emergency practical experience to contribute technological strength to frontline emergency rescue and disaster relief efforts.
