CHENGDU, China — A powerful aftershock destroyed tens of thousands of homes in central China on Sunday, killing six people and straining recovery efforts from the country’s worst earthquake in three decades. More than 500 people were injured.
Meanwhile, soldiers rushed with explosives to unblock a debris-clogged river threatening to flood survivors.
The fresh devastation came after a 6.0-magnitude aftershock — among the most powerful recorded since the initial May 12 quake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The China National Seismic Network said the aftershock was the strongest of dozens in nearly two weeks.
The new tremor killed two people in Sichuan province and injured more than 480 others, 41 seriously, the official Xinhua News Agency said. It reported early today that four people were killed and 20 others were injured seriously in neighboring Shaanxi province.
Xinhua said 71,000 homes that survived the original quake were leveled, and another 200,000 were in danger of collapse from the aftershock that caused office towers to sway in Beijing, 800 miles away. Xinhua did not say whether any of the homes were occupied.
Before the aftershock, China’s Cabinet said the confirmed death toll from the disaster had risen to 62,664, with 23,775 people missing. Premier Wen Jiabao has warned the number of dead could surpass 80,000.
Previous landslides loosened by the quake jammed rivers across the disaster area, creating 35 lakes that placed 700,000 survivors in jeopardy of floods, Vice Minister of Water Resources E Jingping told reporters in Beijing.
The biggest concern was the Tangjiashan lake in Beichuan county, where about 1,600 police and soldiers were hiking with 22 pounds of explosives each to blast through debris, according to Xinhua. The agency said soldiers arrived at the lake early today “and immediately began work to defuse the danger of a major flooding.”
Hazy weather prevented helicopter flights to the area, and forecasts for rain increased the risk that lakes could overflow.
Rain will “not only cause the amount of water going into the lakes to increase but also influence their normal structure, so the situation is quite serious,” Jingping said. “It is a daunting task because of the unpredictability of when the barrier lakes will burst.”
About 20,000 people have been evacuated because of the flood risk, and the total relocated could rise to 100,000, said Liu Ning, chief engineer at the Ministry of Water Resources.
The ministry also said 69 dams in Sichuan were in danger of collapse from quake damage, but reservoirs have been drained to lessen the risk.
In the disaster zone, people ventured back home to retrieve belongings, but some decided the risk of entering damaged buildings was too great.
“I don’t know if we’ll be back,” retiree Huang Huimei, 75, said as her husband handed her part of a cooking stove through the front window of their apartment in Hanwang. “These apartments weren’t that safe before the quake.”
More than 15 million homes were destroyed in the disaster, and the Chinese government has appealed for tents to help shelter survivors.
