Chinese Troops Unleash Controlled Flood

A torrent of muddy water and debris roared down from the mountains of Sichuan yesterday after soldiers used anti-tank rockets and dynamite to drain a dangerously unstable "quake lake".

Local media said dead bodies, cars and household goods were swept downstream as the controlled flood rushed through Beichuan and other communities devastated by last month's earthquake.

Troops used explosives to blast open three channels from the Tangjiashan quake lake, the biggest of 30 bodies of water formed by earthquake-induced landslides. More than 250,000 people have been evacuated in the past two weeks amid fears that the rising volume of the lake could burst through the mud-and-rock barrier. An unknown number of the 69,142 dead and thousands of missing are below the waters.

In a move to clear drainage channels, helicopters have flown earth movers up to the mountain site and soldiers have fired rockets at boulders blocking the flow. The measures appeared to work as the lake's water level dropped by 13 meters, Xinhua news agency said.

Officials were cautiously optimistic that a contingency plan to evacuate another 1 million people would not be needed. "The flow downstream has increased dramatically, but the dam hasn't collapsed," Zhou Hua, spokesman for the lake relief operation, said. "As things are, we don't expect to have to evacuate any more."

For many survivors, the flood is an added misery because they will not be able to salvage belongings from destroyed homes. The government said relief workers had completed 57,100 temporary homes. Refugees say the government has promised to build permanent homes for all the homeless survivors within five years.