Soldiers battle to ease flood risk for Chinese earthquake survivors


9.45am BST


* Tania Branigan in Beijing, Peter Walker and agencies
* guardian.co.uk,
* Tuesday May 27 2008

Chinese troops began digging channels today to try to drain a huge lake formed by the Sichuan earthquake that threatens to flood an area occupied by more than a million survivors.

The soldiers used mechanical diggers to carve out a 200 metre channel along the Tangjiashan "quake lake", one of 34 bodies of water formed by landslides that dammed rivers after the May 12 quake.

Other troops carried explosive charges through mountains to reach the lake and were preparing to clear the ground around its edge.

"We are prepared to get rid of the trees by chopping and explosion. After that, the second batch of equipment will be moved in," Liu Ning, the chief engineer at the water resources ministry, told state-run CCTV television.

Two weeks after the magnitude 7.9 earthquake hit Sichuan, officials in Beijing said the confirmed death toll was 67,183 and 20,790 people were sill missing.

Tens of thousands of those closest to the Tangjiashan lake have been moved to higher ground and the authorities have begun informing residents about its plans if the dam bursts.

State television said the lake, now holding about 128m cubic metres of water, should be safe for the next 10 days, the time it is expected to take the army to clear debris. But experts have warned that it is difficult to predict when the landslide dams will burst.

Heavy rain is forecast – almost three quarters of the 60cm of rain that falls in Sichuan in an average year comes in the summer.

The lake is two miles upstream from the centre of the devastated Beichuan county and officials have already evacuated 35,000 people in case of a secondary disaster.

According to the China News Service, 160,000 people will be evacuated if it appears that a third of the dam will give way. If it looks as if the entire dam will burst, 1.3 million will be moved.

According to Xinhua, the main official news agency, 1,000 people attended yesterday's meeting to discuss the evacuation in Mianyang city. Experts promised the evacuation warning would be given 24 hours before the situation became dangerous.

More than 30 other landslide dams endanger survivors in Sichuan. In Anxian county, about 30 miles south of Beichuan, the Chaping river has formed a lake submerging Shuangdian village. It is still rising rapidly.

"The water was covering the road and, two days later, I could not see the roof of my house anymore," former resident Liu Zhongfu told the Associated Press. "My village, it's all become a sea."

Elsewhere, officials evacuated 600 people from Guanzhuang in Qingchuan county because of landslide worries.

Xinhua also reported that three reservoirs in Shaanxi province, north of Sichuan, were in danger of collapse after a strong aftershock on Sunday.

The country's leaders said they were focusing on resettlement and reconstruction, but the search for survivors should not stop.

Many of those killed by the quake are children, and officials yesterday reassured bereaved parents they would be able to have another child despite China's strict policies.

Parents in Dujiangyan and Pengzhou, two badly hit areas, will receive certificates allowing them to have another child if their first was killed, severely injured or disabled.

Officials also announced that couples who adopt earthquake orphans will still be allowed to hava a biological child. It is estimated that 4,000 children have been left without parents, some of whom have no other family.

The government's promise to investigate why so many schools collapsed has yet to assuage the anger of bereaved parents.

A Chinese newspaper reported that hundreds of angry relatives ignored an official who was pleading with them on his knees. Their demand for a thorough investigation by higher authorities is an indication of the rage and defiance felt in the area.

According to the Southern Metropolis Daily, parents of the 127 pupils killed at Fuxin school in Mianzhu marched past the Communist party boss as he knelt in front of the procession.

"Please believe the Mianzhu party committee can resolve the issue. Please do not march on," the party chief was quoted as saying.