China has ordered nationwide safety checks for schools a month after the Sichuan earthquake saw many collapse in heaps of rubble.
Muddy lake water from a dangerously unstable ”quake lake” rushed into the devastated Chinese town of Beichuan on Tuesday, covering about a third of the settlement where the water level was rising fast.
Chinese officials have sent condolences and payments to parents of children killed in a school that crumpled in the country’s earthquake.
Chinese troops began easing pressure on a dangerously swollen ”quake lake” on Saturday, with water gushing into a man-made sluice in an operation monitored by satellite.
China readied on Friday to ease pressure on a swollen ”quake lake” threatening hundreds of thousands of people downstream in the southwestern province of Sichuan.
China was preparing to dynamite rock, mud and rubble forming a dangerously large ”quake lake” on Monday, hoping to avert a new disaster two weeks after a catastrophic tremor struck Sichuan province. The official estimate of dead from the May 12 earthquake is now more than 60 000, but that number is certain to grow.
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.
China vowed on Wednesday to deal severely with anyone found responsible for shoddy state building work, as parents demanded to know why last week’s quake destroyed so many schools, killing thousands of children. Nine days after the massive tremor hit the mountainous Sichuan province in south-western China, rescuers were still finding survivors.
Police tried to stop anguished relatives from streaming into one of the worst-affected areas of China’s massive earthquake on Sunday, as another strong aftershock hit the area and the death toll rose to nearly 32 500. Hundreds of aftershocks have rattled Sichuan province following last week’s devastating 7,9-magnitude quake.
A Chinese lake damaged by an earthquake may be about to burst its banks, state media said on Saturday, as President Hu Jintao headed for the epicentre with the death toll expected to rise to 50 000. Meanwhile, survivors were found on Saturday, five days after the disaster, including a German tourist who was pulled from the rubble.