A big aftershock rattled south-west China on Sunday killing at least one person and injuring 400 others, state media reported, nearly a fortnight after a big quake killed tens of thousands in the same area.
More than 70 000 houses toppled during Sunday’s tremor in Sichuan province, state television reported. The 5,8 magnitude aftershock was epicentred 40km west-northwest of Guangyuan, the United States Geological Service said.
At the same time hundreds of troops carrying explosives were trekking through the area, attempting to reach a ”quake lake” that threatened a secondary disaster.
Concerned by a steep rise in the water level of a giant lake at Tangjiashan, authorities want to blast a hole in the barrier before it bursts and causes a flashflood. Thousands have been evacuated below the lake as a precaution.
Premier Wen Jiabao, who believes the overall death toll from main quake could exceed 80 000, has said the main concerns are now secondary disasters like flooding and landslides, epidemics and providing shelter for the millions of displaced.
State television earlier reported that an 80-year-old partially paralysed man was the longest known survivor to date. He was pulled alive from the rubble on Friday, 266 hours after the 7,9 magnitude quake hit.
The man was rescued in Mianzhu city, where he had been trapped under a collapsed pillar of his house. He had survived after being fed by his wife, the television report said.
Precautionary step
The biggest concern among the dozens of quake lakes is one at Tangjiashan which rose 1,93m on Saturday to 723m, Xinhua said.
”The relief work for Tangjiashan quake lake is now at critical stage,” Vice-Minister of Water Resource E Jingpin told a news conference in Beijing. ”The daunting difficulty in treating a quake lake is its unpredictability — its formation and when it could burst.”
But a military expert near the wrecked town of Beichuan said the lake did not pose an immediate threat.
”This is a precautionary step in case there is rain over the coming days. The dam is far from overflowing yet, but we need to release water in case the predicted rains come,” said the PLA officer surnamed Liu.
Heavy rain and high winds were forecast in the province later on Sunday.
State media reported that fog had prevented the airlift of personnel and equipment to the lake, and that more than 1 500 soldiers had been sent there by foot.
Each soldier was carrying 10 kg of explosives, Xinhua state news agency said.
The lake is just 3,2km upstream from Beichuan, a town so badly hit that it will be rebuilt in a new location and the ruins of collapsed buildings left as a quake memorial.
Water Resources official Jingpin said 20 000 people had been evacuated from areas threatened by 19 quake lakes.
Troops said on Sunday that any controlled release of water would not present any danger for locals, but nonetheless farmers said they were worried.
”At night-time you can hear the rumbling from the landslides around here and sometimes the earth shakes,” said Yang Daifu (70) a farmer from Nongwan village, which was nearly completely wiped out in the earthquake.
”We see the water is rising as well, so we still feel threatened here,” said Yang, who now lives in one of the tens of thousands of state-issued blue tents a few kilometres from his old home.
Soldiers, relief workers and survivors are already pushing on with cleaning ruins and agricultural work, although mountainous terrain means some places are still cut off after highways buckled, bridges collapsed and landslides blocked roads. – Reuters 2008