Plans to drain water from the quake-created Tangjiashan Lake are now underway. AP reports:
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 frantic work by engineers and soldiers, waters 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.
For more background, see this CDT story.
