Over a million await flood evacuation order

More than one million people may have to evacuate dozens of villages in a Sichuan province valley if an earthquake-spawned lake threatens to burst and flood the region, an emergency official warned yesterday.

Authorities were preparing to run a drill starting today to ensure 1.3 million people in the Mianyang region can get out quickly if the lake breaks through the wall of debris clogging a river.

An official with the press office of Mianyang City Quake Control and Relief Headquarters, who would give only her surname of Chen, said a report by the Xinhua News Agency that a mass evacuation had already been ordered was wrong.

“People will only be evacuated in case of actual collapsing of the whole bank,” Chen said.

Chinese troops were still working to drain the Tangjiashan lake, which formed above Beichuan town after a quake-triggered landslide blocked a river. There was no sign that the dam was about to burst yesterday, though officials say it could do so in coming days.

Chen said 197,500 people in the valley were being moved to higher ground — about 30,000 more than previously announced.

Today, officials will start a three-day drill that will test government communications systems to ensure that any evacuation order — if it comes — quickly reaches residents in the valley.

The confirmed death toll from the quake is 68,858, the government said yesterday, with 18,618 still missing.