The study site of the Songhua River is located in the Heilongjiang Province on the territory of Northern China. The Songhua flows from south west to northeast near the center of Harbin, having a length of about 50 km within the city. The Songhua is a plains river with a sandy bottom and meandering bed. The fairway width ranges from 400 to 800 m, depth from 2 to 12 m. Bottom sediments of the Songhua nearby Harbin, as compared to other rivers and lakes of Northern China, contain particularly high concentrations of Pb, Zn and Ni, as well as appreciable levels of Cd and As [6, 12].

The New China agency reported that numerous building and houses collapsed but that the number of casualties was less than on 8 March, when people had been caught in their sleep. The worst damage was done at Hsing-t'ai, Heng-shui and Shih-chia-chuang [1]; numerous aftershocks (Nos. 186-90) were felt in the same region up to 29 March.

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The rest of the fleet of several hundred ships consisted of eight-masted “gallopers” (machuan), seven-masted grain junks (liangchuan), six-masted transports (huochuan), and five-masted combat vessels (zhanchun).