Premier Li Keqiang visited Weihui, a county-level city in Central China's Henan province, on Aug 18 to learn about the repair of the dikes on the Weihe River, which was breached due to the heavy rains in July.

Standing on the dike under repair, Premier Li said dikes are the line of defense for life and property.

Drawing lessons from the recent devastating floods, the repair, and reinforcement of dikes, reservoirs, and other water conservancy facilities must be taken as a top priority, to ensure they will weather such floods in the future, he said.

Premier Li called for efforts to keep rivers calm and enhance the anti-disaster capacity of small and medium water conservancy facilities.

Hidden dangers in dikes and reservoirs must be screened out and eliminated, with overall scientific planning and reasonable post-disaster reconstruction put in place, to safeguard people's homelands, Premier Li added.