Search

China declares victory in quake lake battle

AFP - Wednesday, June 11

BEICHUAN, China (AFP) - - China declared victory on Tuesday in its spectacular battle to drain a quake lake that threatened more than one million people, after finally engineering a controlled release of the water.

Torrents of muddy water gushed out of the lake throughout the day, sweeping through towns and villages in Sichuan province that were flattened by last month's devastating earthquake, which left over 86,000 people dead or missing.

After a nervous few hours, the water in the lake fell below the top-alert level without causing any major flooding problems downstream.

With this news, Sichuan Communist Party chief Liu Qibao -- the highest ranking official in the province -- declared a "decisive victory" in the drainage campaign, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The Tangjiashan lake was created when landslides blocked a river in a particularly remote and mountainous area of Sichuan during the May 12 earthquake.

Authorities had warned that 1.3 million quake survivors could be at risk of a huge flood if the unstable dam burst its banks, and China's military had led frantic efforts to drain the water in a controlled manner.

Those efforts included firing small missiles and using dynamite to clear boulders from the planned spillways -- dramatic measures implemented in recent days that finally cleared the channels enough for Tuesday's massive draining.

More than 250,000 people were also evacuated from the most at-risk areas over the past few weeks, while drills were conducted for the more than one million other people who faced having to flee their homes.

Throughout Tuesday, water flowed steadily out of the lake 50 times faster than it was coming in, Xinhua said -- a rate roughly the equivalent of two Olympic-sized swimming pools being drained every second.

In Mianyang, the major town on flatlands downstream, where most people would have been at risk had there been a major flood, the flow of water passing through on Tuesday was greeted with much relief.

Thousands of people lined up above the banks of the river, which a day earlier had been almost completely dry, to watch the torrent of water that had built up to be roughly 500 metres (yards) wide.

"I have never seen so much water in the river... My home was always safe but my workplace was in the danger zone," He Jiayang, a Mianyang resident in her 40s, told AFP.

"In the beginning we were very afraid but not any more. The flood risk has passed. The government has handled this well."

However, for some quake survivors, the operation was no cause for celebration, particularly for those who used to live in the town of Beichuan, which was completely flattened.

"It's really hard for me to take. Our city was so good and beautiful but now there's nothing left. My heart aches," said Zhu Yunyou, a 54-year-old farmer who lost his house in the earthquake.

Zhu spoke to AFP as he stood on a mountain ridge overlooking Beichuan and watched the water gush into the centre of the abandoned town and spill into side streets.

Also on Tuesday, authorities found the bodies of 19 people who were on a military helicopter that crashed 11 days earlier while conducting quake relief efforts, according to Xinhua.

The Mi-171 transport helicopter, with its five crew and 14 people who were being evacuated, was found near the remote town of Yingxiu that was at the epicentre of the 8.0-magnitude quake.

The helicopter appeared to have broken up upon impact, Xinhua said.

Searchers had been plagued by fog and overcast weather in their attempts to find the missing chopper in the rugged, forested mountainous area.

Amid the immediate concerns of draining the lake and finding the helicopter, China has pressed on with the massive task of dealing with the millions of people left homeless by the disaster.

Highlighting the enormous scale of the reconstruction effort, Xinhua said that a new site for the county seat of Beichuan had been chosen, 35 kilometres (21 miles) from the original one that was completely destroyed.

The new county seat will be built at Bandengqiao, a completely flat area of mostly farming land very different from the old town of Qunshan, which was in the mountains.

More than 8,600 people out of Qunshan's population of 13,000 were killed.

The quake was the worst natural disaster to hit China in a generation, killing 69,146 people and leaving 17,516 others missing, according to the latest official toll.

Recommend this article

Average (0 votes)
0 stars
Sign in to recommend this article »
Most Recommended Stories »

Related Articles: China Earthquake

Related Articles: Asia Pacific