Up to 1.3 million people in west China's Sichuan Province have been ordered to evacuate to higher grounds for fear of a major "quake lake" burst as a result of flooding and strong aftershocks.
Tan Li, Party Secretary of Mianyang City and chief of Mianyang City Quake Control and Relief Headquarters, on Friday issued an order that 1.3 million people living downstream from Tangjiashan, a swelling quake-induced lake, must evacuate to higher grounds demarcated by government departments.
The mass evacuation, dubbed a "drill" by local government officials, is said to make way for a possible flood discharging operation set for the weekend.
In accordance with a notice posted by the Tongkou Township Government of Mianyang City seen by Xinhua reporters at the site, starting 8 a.m. on Saturday till the warning is lifted, all people are banned from activities at a line below 36 meters -- a mark the level of the flood water might come up to when the quake lake fully opens.
The fear is that Tangjiashan Lake, formed by landslides that blocked a river known as the Jianjiang after the May 12 quake, is at risk of breaching its bank. This has worsened as heavy downpours started about 10 p.m. on Wednesday and lasted into Thursday around Tangjiashan, driving up the water level in the lake.
Tangjiashan, one of 35 such lakes, is inaccessible by road and can only be reached by foot or air.
By 4 p.m. on Thursday, the water level was 745.5 meters at its highest point before the debris blockage, about 22.78 meters from the lowest barrier.
Meanwhile, the seismological observatory in Sichuan Province is predicting that aftershocks will continue along the northern end of the Wenchuan-Beichuan-Qingchuan fault line in the coming days, with the most powerful being estimated to go around 6.5 in terms of magnitude.
Source: Xinhua
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