Workers battle to beat threat from quake lake

Source: Agencies/Shanghai Daily  |   2008-6-1  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

NEARLY 200,000 people have been evacuated and more than 1 million others warned to be ready to leave quickly as rescue workers prepare to drain a lake formed by the devastating earthquake.

The lake, called Tangjiashan, formed in the Mianyang region of Sichuan Province when a hillside plunged into a river valley during the May 12 quake.

Work on a runoff channel from Tangjiashan was close to completion last night. Xinhua news agency quoted Yue Xi, deputy chief of the water and electricity section of the People's Armed Police, as saying the channel "is expected to discharge flood water" between today and Tuesday.

More than 600 armed police have been working around the clock over the last 10 days on the canal cut through the blockage.

Last night, about 26 excavators and bulldozers were still working on top of the blockage and the work was to be completed around midnight, said Zhou Xiangjun, an armed police officer.

More than 340 soldiers and engineers had left the Tangjiashan lake yesterday, officials said. The remaining 300 people were to stay through last night, and most of them would leave by noon today.

The confirmed death toll from China's worst quake in three decades was raised yesterday to 68,977, an increase of 119 people from a day earlier. Another 17,974 people were still missing, the State Council said. The daily increase was the smallest since the government started announcing death tolls shortly after the quake hit.

A total of 197,477 people had been evacuated to safe ground as of 8am yesterday.

State television showed bulldozers and other heavy earth-moving equipment working on the water diversion channel.

Tan Li, the Party chief of Mianyang, issued another order for up to 1.3 million people in the area to be evacuated if "the barrier of the quake lake fully opens" and floods the area. There was no sign yesterday that the banks of the lake were about to burst.

Millions of people in Sichuan are already living in tent camps and prefabricated housing, which have taken on the tone of new villages.

In Mianyang, about 200 families left their camps in flood-prone areas of the city and moved to higher ground.

One woman who only gave her surname, Wang, said life was uncomfortable but fine under the circumstances.

"We've got all the basics. Those who are out of work are being given food, but my company is taking care of me," said Wang, who was living in a camouflaged tent set above the ground on wood planks.

Yesterday morning, President Hu Jintao arrived in northwest China's Shaanxi Province to oversee quake relief operations.

Hu arrived at Ningqiang County and visited children studying in makeshift shelters.

He extended his greetings to children in the quake-hit regions as well as children over the entire country for International Children's Day.