China Set To Drain Lake Formed By Quake

MIANYANG, China - Chinese authorities prepared Saturday to drain a swelling lake formed by a devastating earthquake, completing work on a drainage channel to divert water that threatens hundreds of thousands of people downstream.

Officials are expected to discharge flood water from the lake into the channel between today and Tuesday, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, quoting Yue Xi, deputy chief of the water and electricity section of the People's Armed Police.

The lake, called Tangjiashan, formed above the town of Beichuan in the Mianyang region of Sichuan province when a hillside slid into a river valley during the May 12 quake.

Chinese authorities had evacuated nearly 200,000 people by early Saturday and warned more than 1 million others to be ready to leave quickly if the barrier containing the lake collapses, loosing floodwaters.

The confirmed death toll from China's worst quake in three decades was raised Saturday to 68,977, an increase of about 120 people from a day earlier. Another 17,974 people remained missing, the State Council, or Cabinet, said.

The daily increase was the smallest since the government started announcing death tolls shortly after the earthquake.

State television showed bulldozers and other heavy earth-moving equipment working on the water diversion channel. It did not show how far up the landslide the channel had been carved.

There was no sign that the banks of the lake were about to burst. Troops have sealed off Beichuan to the public.

Tangjiashan is the largest of more than 30 lakes that have formed behind landslides caused by the quake, which also weakened man-made dams in the mountainous areas of the disaster zone.

Another province hit by the earthquake, Gansu, plans to complete its rebuilding by the end of 2010, the governor said Saturday.

The rebuilding will include homes, schools and hospitals, and restoration of infrastructure such as telecommunications, power supply and transport, Xinhua reported quoting Xu Shousheng. The earthquake killed more than 360 people in Gansu.

Numerous fundraising events have been held around China. The latest is planned for Tuesday when Chinese pianist Lang Lang and The Philadelphia Orchestra are to play a nationally televised charity concert in Beijing to support the earthquake relief effort.

The orchestra is in China to commemorate the 35th anniversary of a 1973 trip it made as the Cold War between China and the United States began to thaw.