Soldiers jump into the man-made sluice
channel to clear objects obstructing the water drain from the Tangjiashan
"quake lake" in Mianyang City, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, June 7,
2008. (Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>
MIANYANG, Sichuan Province, June 7 (Xinhua) --
Engineering soldiers began to use dynamite to blast off boulders and objects in
the dangerous Tangjiashan "quake lake" so that water drained faster through a
man-made sluice channel.
The lake started to drain on Saturday morning and
water flowed at a speed of nearly 10 cubic meters per second at 7 p.m., far more
than the previous two cubic meters per second.
Minister of Water Resources Chen Lei told Xinhua that
the lake was still dangerous despite the drainage.
Ten patrol soldiers have been sent to the dam for
strict monitoring during the night.
More experts will be sent to the site. Three expert
meetings would be held every day and the results would be heard by the
headquarter ahead of further operations.
Rao Xiping, head of the Beichuan hydrometeorological
station, said the water level of the lake was still rising due to the slowness
of the water flow.
The water level in the lake stood at 741.02 meters
above the sea level at 6 p.m., 0.65 meter higher than that triggering the quake
lake's overflowing.
Water from Tangjiashan "quake lake"
flows into a man-made sluice channel in Mianyang City, Southwest China's
Sichuan Province, June 7, 2008. The long-awaited drainage of China's
Tangjiashan "quake lake" started on Saturday morning, as its water flowed
into a man-made sluice channel.(Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>
The quake lake was enlarged by 13.5 million cubic
meters, and has reached 229.5 million in total, according to experts at the
Tangjiashan quake lake relief center.
The experts also said no strong rainfall is expected
until June 16, which will be good for the quake relief work. The possibility of
a strong aftershock measuring 6.0 or above on the Richter scale is also slim,
they said.
The swollen lake was formed by a massive landslide
following the May 12 earthquake that jolted the country's southwest. It is
posing a major threat to 1.3 million people downstream.
Some 600 armed police and soldiers worked for six
days and nights to dig a 475-meter channel to divert water from the lake.
More than 250,000 people in low-lying areas in
Mianyang have been relocated under a plan based on the assumption that a third
of the lake volume breached its banks.
Two other plans require the relocation of 1.2 million
people if half the lake volume is released or 1.3 million if the barrier is
fully opened.
The lake is also posing a threat to the Fujiang river
bridge on the Baoji-Chengdu Railway, a critical part of the railway network in
western China.
Liu Yongzhan, a pontoon bridge army colonel, told
Xinhua that his men are ready to protect the bridge by intercepting, bombarding
and salvaging large floaters that may be washed down by the flooding.
The swollen quake lake has also put China's longest
oil pipeline at risk. The pipeline, winding from Lanzhou via Chengdu to
Chongqing, was 60 kilometers downstream from the lake.
Liu Xiaozhong, director in charge of the pipeline
protection work, said that the pipeline will not be disrupted according to the
work plan on the quake lake.
More than 100 Petro China staffers and 20 pieces of
large equipment were assembled for protecting the pipeline.
With a capacity of transferring 6 million tonnes of
oil each year, the pipeline provides 70 percent of product oil to Sichuan and
neighboring Chongqing Municipality.
If the line was cut, refined oil in storage could
only supply Sichuan for three days, whereas repair work would take 30 days.
