Chinese troops battle rain to drain lake

Chinese troops racing to drain an "earthquake lake" made substantial progress digging a diversion channel and have created emergency escape paths in case a mud and rock dam gives way.

The landslide-blocked river at Tangjiashan in southwest China is now the most pressing danger after an earthquake devastated the region on May 12.

Meanwhile, an official investigator pinpointed the poor design and construction of at least one of the many schools that collapsed during the 7.9 magnitude quake, killing thousands of children.

The death toll from the quake is more than 68,500 and is sure to rise with nearly 20,000 missing. Aftershocks have toppled 420,000 houses, most already uninhabitable.

A massive relief effort to provide food, tents and clothing for millions and rebuild houses and infrastructure is expected to take up to three years.

At the unstable Tangjiashan lake, hundreds of troops have removed more than a third of the earth for a channel intended to ease pressure from the rising waters in the mountainous province of Sichuan, an official spokesman said on Friday.

"The work on the blocked lake is going smoothly and at this pace it should be completed soon," said Zhou Hua, an official from nearby Mianyang city involved in the drainage effort.

Zhou declined to say when the operation was likely to finish. But up to 190,000 residents downstream had moved to higher ground - usually hillsides close to where they were living before - to avoid a surge of water if the blockage suddenly gave way.

"At this stage, the situation is under control, but we've set in place this contingency plan to minimise any possible damage."

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

Post-quake reconstruction work has only just begun, and tens of thousands of survivors are now threatened by more than 30 quake lakes, formed by landslides, that could break through the natural dams, flooding downstream towns and reservoirs.

Donations from home and abroad had reached 37.3 billion yuan (2.72 billion pounds) by Thursday. China has also enacted a special statute to punish those found misusing relief goods and donations and Beijing has sent 300 auditors to the area.

Japan had shelved plans for its military to fly tents and blankets to China, a Japanese government official said on Friday, after messages on Chinese Internet sites linked the plan to Tokyo's World War Two atrocities in the country.

CHILDREN

Domestic media reports compiled by Reuters put the combined toll from deaths of children and teachers in the rubble of schools at more than 9,000. The Chinese public has been outraged by the disproportionate number.

An official investigator said one the schools that crumpled, the Juyuan Middle School, where hundreds of children died, was fatally weakened by poor design and materials.

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

And an education official in Sichuan has withdrawn from the Beijing Olympic torch rally in atonement.

The number of prospective orphans in the quake area has dropped dramatically as more children were reunited with their parents, Xinhua quoted local officials as saying.

There were about 1,000 "unclaimed children" in Sichuan as of Wednesday, down from more than 8,000 immediately after the earthquake, Xinhua said, adding civil affairs authorities had been overwhelmed by calls seeking to adopt those quake orphans.

The Ministry of Education has ordered universities to recruit more high school students in Sichuan - 2 percent more than the original quotas - in the upcoming national college entrance exams. Many in the quake area have had to prepare for the competitive test in makeshift classrooms in tents.

On Friday, China's first astronaut, Yang Liwei, visited such a school in a tent city in Mianyang, one of the worst-hit areas.

"As science and technology make progress, you will definitely realise a more ambitious dream by landing on the moon and Mars," Yang said, trying to cheer on a class in a Children's Day event shown on state television.