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Aftershock Rocks China, Levels Thousands Of Homes

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The Associated Press

Published: May 25, 2008

CHENGDU, China - A powerful aftershock destroyed tens of thousands of homes in central China on Sunday, killing two people and straining recovery efforts from the country's worst earthquake in three decades. More than 480 others were injured.

Meanwhile, soldiers rushed with explosives to unblock a debris-clogged river that threatened to flood homeless quake survivors.

The fresh devastation came after a magnitude 6.0 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 the nearly two weeks after the disaster.

About 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.

Before the aftershock, the Cabinet said the confirmed death toll from the disaster had risen to 62,664, with another 23,775 people missing. Premier Wen Jiabao has warned the number of dead could surpass 80,000.

Previous landslides loosened by the quake have jammed rivers across the disaster area, creating 35 new 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 new Tangjiashan lake in Beichuan county, where about 1,600 police and soldiers were hiking with 22 pounds of explosives each to blast through debris, Xinhua reported.

About 20,000 people have been evacuated from the disaster area because of the flood risk, and the total relocated could rise to 100,000.

The Ministry of Water Resources said 69 dams in Sichuan were in danger of collapse from quake damage, but reservoirs have been drained to lessen the risk.

Authorities have said that the world's largest water project - the Three Gorges dam, about 350 miles east of the epicenter - was not damaged.

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