China breathes more easily as quake-lake fears ebb
YINGXIU, China (Reuters) - Fears of a devastating floodfrom a lake formed by last month's Sichuan earthquake eased onSunday after hundreds of soldiers and engineers successfullycompleted a channel to drain away the rising water.
Authorities had evacuated 197,000 people and drawn up plansto move as many as another 1.3 million because of the risksposed by a collapse of the Tangjiashan lake, one of 30 createdby landslides touched off by the quake.
Engineers were due to start draining the lake as early asSunday, according to the official Xinhua news agency, whichsaid the army had been able to abandon back-up plans to usedynamite to blast away debris and relieve pressure on the riverfeeding into the lake.
The official death toll from the May 12 quake rose slightlyon Sunday to 69,016, with 18,830 still missing in remote partsof the mountainous southwestern province.
More than 15 million have been evacuated from the areas hitby the 7.9-magnitude quake, China's worst natural disaster inmore than 30 years, the government added.
Ten quake survivors were on board a military helicopterthat crashed in foggy conditions on Saturday near Yingxiu,close to the epicentre of the quake.
A search-and-rescue mission was under way for thehelicopter, which had a crew of four, Xinhua said.
In Yingxiu itself, the sound of explosions set by armyengineers reverberated on Sunday down the steep-sided valleycradling the town.
"They're blasting to clear the remaining buildings. They'reall too dangerous," said a volunteer, Jue Xiaoping. "Oncethey've blasted, we can clear away the rubble and they'll putup new buildings."
Most of the town's surviving residents have been relocatedto tent villages. Only a few remain, picking through the ruins.
A woman who gave only her surname, Wang, was struggling toload a mahjong table onto a little cart.
"I've been hearing them all the time now, so it doesn'treally bother me," she said of the explosions.
BEANCURD BUILDINGS
About 40 km down the valley in Dujiangyan, some 200 parentsand relatives of pupils killed in the quake gathered on Sundayfor a Children's Day commemoration in the rubble-strewn groundsof what used to be Xinjian primary school.
Thousands of children died in the quake when their schoolscrumpled like packs of cards, arousing suspicions among parentsthat building standards had been flouted because of corruption.
Responding to the fury of parents is one of the stiffestpolitical challenges for the ruling Communist Party in theaftermath of the quake.
Angry and tearful, they wore white T-shirts with the nameof the school on the front and, in huge red characters on theback, the slogan 'Severely Punish Corrupt Tofu DregsConstruction' -- a reference to the remnants left when makingtofu, or beancurd, a common Chinese term for shoddy workmanshipand poor materials.
Liao Yingxin, who lost his 12-year-old daughter, said: "Myheart feels very heavy. I can't really express how it feels."
One parent said 300 children from the school died in thedisaster; another said 400.
A little red knapsack poked through the debris. Drawingsare still pinned to the walls of one set of classrooms thatonly partly crumbled. In the rest of the town of Dujiangyan,some buildings are damaged but many others look remarkablyunscathed.
"I don't understand much about construction, but I can seeall the buildings are standing yet the school is gone," Liaosaid. "For the sake of the children, the corrupt must bepunished."
Another man gestured to the school and said: "If you touchthese buildings they turn to powder."
The air was thick with incense as parents burned papermoney and left offerings of fruit. Firecrackers were let off toscare away evil spirits.
One father held a picture of a little boy with his armaround a snowman; a woman carried a picture of her dead sonwearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt.
"Our beloved children, we wish you a happy Children's Dayin the next world," said a woman teacher leading the ceremony.
(Reporting by Lindsay Beck; Writing by Alan Wheatley;Editing by Valerie Lee)