Wednesday, May 28, 2008

China: 80,000 evacuated as troops scurry to keep swollen lake from flooding
Last update: May 27, 2008 - 9:16 PM
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Chinese officials evacuated 80,000 people from a valley threatened by possible flooding from a lake formed by landslides following this month's earthquake as soldiers carved a channel to try to drain the water safely.
The landslides dammed the Jian River, just north of Beichuan in Sichuan Province. All afternoon Tuesday, a large Russian cargo helicopter made several trips to ferry earth-moving equipment from a base at the nearby town of Leigu up to the dam site. Over the weekend, 1,800 soldiers carrying dynamite hiked to the dam area.
The threat of flooding from dozens of lakes swelling behind walls of mud and rubble that have plugged narrow valleys in parts of the disaster zone is adding a new worry for millions of survivors. More than 30 villages were emptied and the people were being sent to camps.
As fears about the lake intensified, the area was struck by two powerful aftershocks on Tuesday, one registering magnitude 5.2 and another measuring 5.7 about a half-hour later.

GRIEF TO ANGER
Bereaved parents whose children were crushed to death in their classrooms in Sichuan Province have turned mourning ceremonies into protest events in recent days, forcing officials to address a growing political backlash over shoddy construction of public schools.
Parents of the estimated 10,000 children who lost their lives in the quake have grown so enraged about collapsed schools that they have overcome their usual caution about confronting Communist Party officials. Many say they are especially upset that some schools for poor students crumbled into rubble even though government offices and more elite schools not far away survived the quake largely intact.
The protests threaten to undermine the government's attempts to promote its response to the quake as effective and to highlight heroic rescue efforts by the People's Liberation Army, which has dispatched 150,000 soldiers to the region

PARADE OF LOOTERS?
About 20 men and women suspected of looting houses and stores in Dujiangyan were paraded in front of the public as a part of efforts to tackle a burgeoning wave of looting in the aftermath of the recent massive earthquake.
The suspects were lined up on a truck and paraded in front of the shelter area, where about 1,000 local residents are living in tents as a result of the quake. "We'll crack down on any criminal activity strictly," a police officer said.