China breathes more easily as quake-lake fears ebb

By Lindsay Beck

YINGXIU, China (Reuters) - Fears of a devastating flood from a lake formed by last month's Sichuan earthquake eased on Sunday after hundreds of soldiers and engineers successfully completed a channel to drain away the rising water.

Authorities had evacuated 197,000 people and drawn up plans to move as many as another 1.3 million because of the risks posed by a collapse of the Tangjiashan lake, one of 30 created by landslides touched off by the quake.

Engineers were due to start draining the lake as early as Sunday, according to the official Xinhua news agency, which said the army had been able to abandon back-up plans to use dynamite to blast away debris and relieve pressure on the river feeding into the lake.

The official death toll from the May 12 quake rose slightly on Sunday to 69,016, with 18,830 still missing in remote parts of the mountainous southwestern province.

More than 15 million have been evacuated from the areas hit by the 7.9-magnitude quake, China's worst natural disaster in more than 30 years, the government added.

Ten quake survivors were on board a military helicopter that crashed in foggy conditions on Saturday near Yingxiu, close to the epicenter of the quake.

A search-and-rescue mission was under way for the helicopter, which had a crew of four, Xinhua said.

In Yingxiu itself, the sound of explosions set by army engineers reverberated on Sunday down the steep-sided valley cradling the town.

"They're blasting to clear the remaining buildings. They're all too dangerous," said a volunteer, Jue Xiaoping. "Once they've blasted, we can clear away the rubble and they'll put up new buildings."

Most of the town's surviving residents have been relocated to tent villages. Only a few remain, picking through the ruins.

A woman who gave only her surname, Wang, was struggling to load a mahjong table onto a little cart.

"I've been hearing them all the time now, so it doesn't really bother me," she said of the explosions.

BEANCURD BUILDINGS

About 40 km (25 miles) down the valley in Dujiangyan, some 200 parents and relatives of pupils killed in the quake gathered on Sunday for a Children's Day commemoration in the rubble-strewn grounds of what used to be Xinjian primary school.

Thousands of children died in the quake when their schools crumpled like packs of cards, arousing suspicions among parents that building standards had been flouted because of corruption.