China relief workers move another 80,000 to safety

Another 80,000 people were being hurried to safety today from the path of floods building up behind earthquake debris in China.

The rescue took the number of people moved out of the threatened valley to almost 160,000 from more than 30 townships.

The lake in northern Sichuan province, formed when a massive landslide blocked a river, holds 34 billion gallons of water and is rising by three feet each hour.

Soldiers carried explosives through the mountains to reach the area preparing to for an attempt to blow a gap through the debris and relieve the pressure.

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

It is only one of dozens created by fragile dams of debris during the earthquake that pose a new destructive threat in the disaster zone.

Pressure is building behind the dams as rivers and streams feed into the newly formed lakes. Officials fear the loose soil and debris walls of the dams could crumble easily, especially once the water level reaches the top and begins cascading over.

Adding to the threat, thunderstorms were forecast for parts of Sichuan this week - a foretaste of the coming summer rainy season that accounts for more than 70% of the two feet of rain that falls on the area each year.

In northern Sichuan, 1,300 people were evacuated from Guanzhuang town because of landslide worries.

The number of deaths from the quake climbed further toward an expected toll of 80,000 or more. The government said today that 67,183 people were confirmed killed, with 20,790 still missing.

Aftershocks continued to rattle the region. Two in Qingchuan county caused more than 420,000 houses to collapse.

One quake expert said the aftershocks in the area could continue for several months, although 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, said.

Elsewhere in the disaster zone, explosives were used to demolish damaged buildings in the town of Yingxiu. Teams have been pulling down weakened buildings across Sichuan recently.

Also today health officials said higher-than-normal rates of stomach pains and fever had been reported among the millions of quake survivors, but that no major disease outbreaks had occurred.

Some five million people were left homeless by the quake, and many of them are living in tents or makeshift communities that are clustered throughout the disaster zone.

Qi Xiaoqiu director of disease prevention at the health ministry said the quake had destroyed much of the region's health infrastructure but that 12 field hospitals had been erected and tens of thousands of health professionals were working in the zone.

"With the destruction by the quake, the living and sanitary conditions have worsened for the local population," he said. "Their physical conditions are weakened, (they are) more vulnerable to disease."

Diseases such as tuberculosis, hepatitis and diarrhoea remained a threat, but so far no outbreaks had been reported, he said.