China begins evacuation drill for quake-zone flood area

Chinese authorities began evacuating earthquake relief workers from a flood-risk zone today, in a drill that put 1.3 million people on alert to quickly leave if an earthquake-spawned lake breached a dam.

Hundreds of Chinese troops have been working around the clock to drain Tangjiashan lake in Sichuan province, which formed above Beichuan town in the Mianyang region when a hillside plunged into a river valley during the May 12 quake that killed more than 68,000 people.