Word: silting
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...nations are divided by bitter issues primarily concerning the lower Ganges River, which meanders through both countries as it flows out into a vast delta. Tensions have built up over rights to the Ganges water, various solutions to the water question and territorial claims to islands formed by silt at the mouth of a boundary river. The sovereignty question is particularly volatile: there are hopes of finding oil under nearby waters. While Zia had pressed India strenuously on the diplomatic front-even sending gunboats to one of the 'disputed islands last month-he was apparently not aggressive enough...
...seen in 26 years. While giant dikes held back the main torrent of the mighty Yangtze River, 142 branch levees burst, spilling water over the low, rice-growing terrain, affecting some 6.2 million peasant families. Says one observer of the disaster area: "Much of the land is covered by silt and debris, and can't be cultivated. There are villages where absolutely everything has been swept away." Though a cleanup is well under way, tens of thousands of Chinese are still living in makeshift tar-paper shacks, and millions are getting by on a starvation diet of about...
...mile log jam along the Columbia River that blocked shipping between Longview, Wash., and Astoria, Ore. Volcanic mud carried by the river choked the harbor of Portland. Officials estimated that the ports would lose $5 million a day until dredges could clear a new channel through the silt, which in some places reduced the depth of the harbor from 40 ft. to 14 ft. Not all the long-range effects of the blast, particularly to the region's ecological balance, can yet be calculated. For example, the eruption killed a million fingerlings (baby fish) in a hatchery at Toutle...