Unstable lake threatens mudslide-ravaged China town

Source: Reuters By Ben Blanchard and Royston Chan

China (Reuters) - Engineers battled on Tuesday to drain an unstable lake created by China's deadliest landslide in decades, fearing it could burst and swamp devastated areas where people are still hunting for survivors.

At least 702 people died in northwestern Gansu province when a torrent of mud and rocks engulfed swathes of the small town of Zhouqu at the weekend, and another 1,042 are missing, an emergency relief official, Tian Baozhong, told reporters there.

Officials have warned for years that heavy tree-felling and rapid hydro development were making the mountain area around Zhouqu more vulnerable to land slips, government reports show.

Locals kept waiting and weeping beside buried and destroyed homes where their relatives and friends were trapped, hoping at least to find the remains of loved ones.

"My niece is buried under there. She is a high school student, such a good girl," said crying 42-year-old Yin Linfeng, who survived the landslide because she had been away.

"She was buried in the rubble when she was looking after my house...I will not give up. I want to see her body if she is dead. It was all my fault."

A 52 year-old Tibetan man was pulled from a collapsed apartment on Tuesday morning, only the second person found alive since Sunday in a town buried in sludge up to seven meters deep in places.

Search efforts under a blazing sun and the pain of finding only corpses were also taking a toll on survivors, medics said.

"There are ... people who have spent several days looking for their family members without any food or water. Some of them suffered from hypoglycaemia (a sharp fall in blood sugar levels), some fainted, some had a heat stroke," said military doctor Wang Puxuan, treating them.

FEARS OVER BRIMMING LAKE

The landslide was the worst to hit China in six decades, state media said, and the most deadly single incident in a year of heavy flooding that had already killed nearly 1,500.

Five people died in a landslide in northwest Shaanxi province after heavy rains on Monday night, the Xinhua news agency said.

In northeast Jilin province, more than 2,000 rescuers sought to save 18 miners trapped down a coal mine that flooded after heavy rains, the agency reported late on Tuesday.

There is no sign of a let-up in the onslaught, with tropical storm "Dianmu" heading for northern China, and expected to bring strong rains as far away as the landslide area.

Fearing new downpours after days of sunshine that eased rescue work, local officials focused on preventing a catastrophic overflow of the brimming new lake in the center of Zhouqu.

OFFICIALS HAVE WARNED OF RISKS

Government reports shows that officials have long been warning of the risks.

One government report last year called the Bailong River a "high-occurrence disaster zone for landslides."

Officials are focusing on the loose dam thrown down by the landslide.

Water levels behind the barrier fell slightly after controlled explosions created a channel to funnel some off, and on Tuesday occasional blasts echoed around Zhouqu.

"Our county is surrounded by mountains, the barrier lake has clogged the river, and once water comes from upstream, we will definitely be flooded," said He Dong, a 36-year-old survivor of the mudslide. "This is a great danger to us."

Thousands of people have already been evacuated from villages downstream as a precaution, as the surge of mud and floodwaters would be almost impossible to escape.