Chinese battle quake lake amid official confusion

MIANYANG, China (Reuters) - China's struggle to overcomeearthquake devastation was compounded by confusion after anofficial denied a report that 1.3 million people would evacuatefrom a city threatened by a swelling "quake lake".

Facing outrage from grieving parents, the government vowedto punish anyone responsible for school buildings thatcollapsed in the quake and killed thousands of children.

The landslide-blocked river at Tangjiashan in southwestChina's Sichuan province is the most pressing danger after anearthquake devastated the region on May 12.

The official death toll from the quake is 68,858 and issure to rise with 18,618 missing, and there is widespread worrythat more than 30 landslide-blocked rivers could burst throughand bring more havoc by flooding downstream towns andreservoirs.

The official Xinhua news agency said Tan Li, CommunistParty Secretary of Mianyang in the quake zone, ordered 1.3million people living downstream from Tangjiashan to "evacuateto higher ground".

But Zhou Hua, a Mianyang city official who is a spokesmanfor the lake relief effort, told Reuters the report wasinaccurate.

"There is a virtual training exercise scheduled fortomorrow to test our contingency plan to move that manypeople," he said. "But there is no public participation, and wesee no reason at all to actually implement the plan at thisstage."

Xinhua's Chinese-language service later also said there wasmerely a training exercise planned in Mianyang, a city of 5.3million people including many in rural areas.

In villages outside Mianyang city there were no immediatesigns of either mass panic or exodus.

"The government and the army are working on it and won'tlet it burst," said Jin Dongsheng, a farmer in Qingyi town nearthe city. He and about 3,000 town residents had been movedabout half an hour's walk uphill from homes close the riverbank.

In Mianyang city itself, some residents were setting uptents on hills, but again no signs of panic or mass flight wereevident.

RECONSTRUCTION

At the unstable Tangjiashan lake, hundreds of troops haveremoved more than a third of the earth for a channel intendedto ease pressure from the rising waters, Zhou said.

Up to 190,000 residents downstream had moved to higherground, usually hillsides close to where they were livingbefore, to avoid a surge if the blockage suddenly gave way, hesaid.

Xinhua said the water level was nearly 23 metres (75 feet)below the lowest point of the barrier, which experts have saidcould give way quickly once breached. Troops have also builtescape paths in the event that happens.

A Chinese meteorological authority official, Zhai Panmao,told a news conference that the authority did not expect heavyrain in the area in the next 10 days.

"We've adopted extremely important measures and are openingup a breach and so on," he said of the Tangjiashan build-up."We have full confidence in solving this problem."

Post-quake reconstruction work has only begun, with manydisplaced people facing a cramped, sweltering summer in tents.

The government has received 35.28 billion yuan (2.6 billionpounds) in donations of cash and relief goods from home andabroad to date, officials said.

But some aid pledged has yet to be received, and a deputyhead of the Ministry of Civil Affairs disaster relief office,Pang Chenmin, warned tardy donors they could be publiclyshamed.

"The aid ought to be given to the recipient as promised andin a timely manner," Pang told a news conference in Beijing.

Japan had shelved plans for its military to fly tents andblankets to China, a Japanese government official said onFriday, after messages on Chinese Internet sites recalledTokyo's World War Two atrocities in the country.

CHILDREN DEAD

Meanwhile, an official investigator pinpointed the poordesign and construction of at least one of the many schoolsthat collapsed during the quake, killing thousands of children.

Domestic media reports compiled by Reuters put the combinedtoll from deaths of children and teachers in the rubble ofschools at more than 9,000.

The Chinese public has been outraged by school buildingsthat fell while nearby apartments and government officessurvived.

An official investigator said one of the schools thatcrumpled, the Juyuan Middle School, where hundreds of childrendied, was fatally weakened by poor design and materials.

"There were certainly problems with site selection, thebuilding's structure and structural features, the constructionand materials," Chen Baosheng, an expert from Tongji Universityin Shanghai, told the Southern Weekend.

Amid growing threats of protests and law suits, thegovernment said grieving parents should be comforted andlawbreakers behind shoddy schools punished.

"Focus on easing the emotions of parents of deceasedstudents," a meeting of senior quake-response officials inBeijing ordered, according to state television news.

"If illegalities are found in design and construction, theymust be investigated and punished according to the law."

(Additional reporting by Chisa Fujioka in Tokyo, ChrisBuckley, Guo Shipeng and Beijing newsroom; Editing by NickMacfie and Valerie Lee)