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.