Army Blasts Unstable Quake Lake As Flood Threat Rises

Chinese troops have begun detonating explosives and firing rockets to accelerate the drainage of an unstable mountain lake that threatens to flood more than a million people in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake.

The measures failed to prevent the water at the Tangjiashan "quake lake" from rising over the weekend as a fresh aftershock sent rocks and earth tumbling down from the slopes. A quarter of a million people have been evacuated downstream amid fears that the lake could burst through a mud-and-rock dam formed by a landslide when the earthquake struck Sichuan province on May 12.

To ease pressure on the unstable barrier, soldiers have spent the past week digging a 475-meter-long drainage channel near the site in Beichuan county. Most of the work has been done by bulldozers flown in to the remote site by helicopters. But the state media carried images yesterday of soldiers firing missiles at boulders and blasting debris blocking the channel.

General Ge Zhenfeng, deputy chief of the general staff of the People's Liberation Army, told the Xinhua news agency that it would take a few days before the danger passed. According to the Sichuan provincial hydro-meteorological bureau, the volume of water flowing into the lake is 4.6 times higher than the outflow.

Downstream, however, there was little sense of panic. In Mianyang, many people have been moved to higher ground, but fishermen still ply the Tongkou river banks in the belief that even if the mud-dam collapses they will have several hours before it hits their area.

As of yesterday the quake death toll was 69,136.