Aftershocks in China collapse 420,000 houses

updated 1:13 p.m. ET May 27, 2008

BEIJING - Two aftershocks caused more than 420,000 houses to collapse in China's quake zone, a government news agency reported Tuesday.

The temblors caused more than 420,000 houses to collapse in Qingchuan county, Xinhua reported. Additional details were not available about how the estimate was made. Phones were not answered late Tuesday at the Qingchuan county police department.

Sixty-three people reportedly were injured, including six who were critically hurt.

The U.S. Geological Survey measured a 5.2 magnitude aftershock that struck just after 4 p.m., followed by a magnitude 5.7 temblor about a half-hour later.

Meanwhile, Chinese officials rushed to evacuate another 80,000 people in the path of potential floodwaters building up behind a quake-spawned dam as soldiers carved a channel to try to drain away the threat.

Xinhua reported emergency workers would try to complete the evacuation by midnight Tuesday, taking the number of people moved out of the threatened valley to almost 160,000, from more than 30 townships.

The Tangjiashan lake in northern Sichuan province, formed when a massive landslide blocked a river, is one of dozens of fragile dams created during the earthquake that pose a new destructive threat in the disaster zone.

200-yard channel being dug
Soldiers hauled explosives through the mountains to reach the area, and the official Chinese Daily said Tuesday on its Web site they were “preparing to dynamite the barrier.” State television showed live footage of heavy earth-moving equipment being used to carve out a 200-yard channel to drain the water.

The lake is swelling behind a landslide near Beichuan, one of the towns hit hardest by the May 12 tremor that devastated Sichuan.

Residents of Huangshi village said they were told to move to a government-built tent camp on a hillside overlooking the river near Jiangyou town, southeast of Beichuan, to avoid the potential flood.

“We were told that so far it is the safest place for us to stay if the dam of the lake crashes,” villager Liu Yuhua said Tuesday. “But we will have to move further uphill if the situation turns out to be worse.”

The number of deaths from the quake has climbed further toward an expected toll of 80,000 or more. The Cabinet said Tuesday that 67,183 people were confirmed killed — up by about 2,000 from a day earlier — and 20,790 still were missing.

Elsewhere in the disaster zone, explosives were used to demolish some damaged buildings in the town of Yingxiu. Teams have been pulling down creaky buildings across Sichuan recently, using mostly excavators, bulldozers and other heavy machinery.

Dozens of aftershocks have further frayed survivors’ nerves. A major temblor Sunday knocked down thousands of buildings that had survived the initial quake, and killed eight people.

One quake expert said that aftershocks in the area could continue for several months, though they would grow weaker as time passes.

“Judging from previous earthquakes of a similar magnitude, this time the aftershocks may last for two or three months,” He Yongnian, a former deputy director of China Seismological Bureau, was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

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