As aftershocks wreaked more havoc, the government rushed to evacuate an additional 80,000 people from Sichuan province on Tuesday because of the threat of flooding from a lake formed by quake-induced landslides, state media reported.
Hundreds of engineers and soldiers worked to create a sluiceway to drain a "barrier lake" in Tangjiashan. Anxious residents downstream in Mian- yang continued to flee the city or scurry to higher ground. Authorities previously evacuated more than 70,000 people.
Two temblors, measured by Chinese officials as magnitude 5.4 and 5.7, hit Sichuan's Qingchuan County and a neighboring province in the afternoon, injuring at least 63 people and toppling thousands of houses, according to the official New China News Agency.
"This is more scary than floods," said Bin Jun, 27, who works maintaining computers in Mianyang. "People are getting a little irritated. It's already been half a month [since the initial quake] and there are still many aftershocks."
Death toll raised
A powerful aftershock Sunday, centered in Qingchuan, killed at least nine people. On Tuesday, China's Cabinet again raised the death toll from the May 12 temblor -- to more than 67,000; 20,790 people were listed as still missing.
China is contending with 35 barrier lakes that formed when rivers were dammed by landslides mostly triggered by the initial magnitude 7.9 quake. Geologists worry that aftershocks or heavy rains could burst the barriers. The largest and perhaps most threatening of them is the one at Tangjia- shan, where the water level rose 6 more feet Tuesday. It was 82 feet below the lowest part of the barrier.
State media said that at least 600 specialists and soldiers, using bulldozers and machinery airlifted by Russian helicopters, were trying to drain the water. But experts said a diversion channel wouldn't be in place until June 5.
As a result, authorities have drafted plans that include the evacuation of up to 1.3 million people in the area of Mianyang if the barrier at Tangjiashan completely collapses.
Even as threats of flooding and aftershocks slowed relief efforts, officials declared Tuesday that the post-quake work had entered a new stage with a focus on reconstruction and the resettlement of about 5 million people left homeless.
Most of them are living in tents, many at overcrowded refugee camps. But some are beginning to move into temporary houses that are being constructed in quake-hit areas. The government says 1.5 million such shelters will be built.
