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Critical moment for China's 'quake lake', Wen warns
Qinglian, China (AFP) June 5, 2008 Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Thursday that efforts to drain a dangerously swollen "quake lake" were at a critical juncture, with one million people warned to prepare for the worst. Wen, who has been very visible since the devastating May 12 earthquake in southwest Sichuan province, flew by helicopter to the lake at Tangjiashan soon after arriving in the disaster zone early Thursday, Xinhua news agency said. "Now it's a critical moment for the Tangjiashan quake lake, and the most important thing is to ensure no casualties among people," Xinhua quoted Wen as saying. Water Resources Minister Chen Lei said: "We must prepare for dealing with the worst-case scenario but strive for the best results," as two weeks of preparations were about to be put to the test. The lake was created when a quake-triggered landslide blocked the Jianjiang river, and the water level has steadily risen ever since. The swollen lake has become one of the most pressing issues in the aftermath of the disaster in mountainous Sichuan, which killed more than 69,000 people and left millions homeless. The mud and rock dam was in danger of collapsing under the pressure of the mounting body of water, and seepage was already occurring, Xinhua quoted a spokesman for "lake control headquarters" as saying. Complicating the problem was a steady rain that fell in Mianyang prefecture, where the quake lake is located, with precipitation expected to increase Friday before dissipating over the weekend, the state meteorological centre said. Officials have pinned their hopes on a channel dug by soldiers last week and designed to drain enough water to keep the lake from bursting its banks. An estimated 1.3 million people live in areas that could be inundated if the plan does not work. "If it's not the earthquake, it's the flood. But if they order us to go, we'll go," said Liao Guangmei, a 60-year-old woman left homeless by the quake, as she sweltered under a makeshift shelter in Mianyang. Many storefronts in the city, which is downstream from the lake, were sealed and sandbagged. Red stripes spray-painted on trees at a height of about one metre (three feet) showed the expected water level should the lake burst. On a road leading to the town of Qinglian near the lake, a kilometre-long line of army trucks was parked, many loaded with olive-green boats, others with portable bridges. Inside Qinglian, row after row of apartment buildings in the potential flood zone were abandoned, and the residential areas were sealed off with police tape. Amid the ongoing woes, the president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said China would need up to 10 years to fully overcome the disaster. "Of course, the challenges are very enormous and dealing with them will be a heavy task for many years," said Juan Manuel Suarez del Toro Rivero, who is touring the quake zone. "In our experience after an earthquake you need another five to 10 years of work," he told AFP. The death toll from China's 8.0-magnitude earthquake rose to 69,127 on Thursday, with another 17,918 missing, the government said on Thursday. In the heavily quake-damaged town of Hanwang, more than 14,000 people were to be evacuated, as they were exposed to landslides and mudflows, according to Xinhua. Following the announcement, people who had been living in tent camps since they lost their homes in the earthquake were preparing to relocate once again. "The government says we have to move, because there could be landslides from aftershocks and heavy rain, so it is not safe to stay here anymore," Xu Shifeng told AFP. An aftershock with a magnitude of 5.3 jolted Sichuan's Qingchuan county on Thursday, the US Geological Survey said -- one of more than 10,000 since May 12. But another tent-dweller who gave her surname as Li said she was not going anywhere. "We already had enough trouble, and I think we are too far away from the mountain," she said, gesturing towards a mountainside behind the city scarred by recent landslides. "We already had the big earthquake. We are not afraid of aftershocks." Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Share This Article With Planet Earth
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Outside View: The new China Syndrome
Washington (UPI) May 29, 2008 Thirty or so years ago, the phrase "China Syndrome" was the battle cry of the more radical elements opposing nuclear power. The meaning was clear. A catastrophic nuclear reactor failure here would melt all the way through the Earth and end up in China -- a warning that was as ludicrous as it was dead wrong. |
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