MIANYANG, China — Water poured from a massive lake formed by China’s deadly earthquake in a carefully engineered diversion Saturday to ease the threat of flooding for a million people in the sprawling disaster zone.
After two weeks of work by engineers and soldiers, water flowed into the hurriedly built spillway, but at a rate too slow to cause the lake’s level to drop. Military engineers dynamited boulders and soldiers used excavators to deepen the channel to accelerate the flow, state media said.
“The lake was still dangerous despite the draining,” the official Xinhua News Agency quoted Minister of Water Resources Chen Lei as saying late Saturday.
The Tangjiashan lake, created when a landslide dammed the Tongkou River, has become a priority for a government hoping to head off another catastrophe even as it cares for millions left homeless from the May 12 quake, which killed nearly 70,000 people.
The Associated Press
