Officials in China rush to evacuate 80,000 – Yahoo News

The Tangjiashan lake in northern Sichuan province, formed when a massive landslide blocked a river, is one of dozens of fragile dams created during the earthquake that pose a new destructive threat in the disaster zone.

Soldiers hauled explosives through the mountains to reach the area, and the official Chinese Daily said Tuesday on its Web site they were “preparing to dynamite the barrier.” State television showed live footage of heavy earth-moving equipment being used to carve out a 200-yard channel to drain the water.

“We are prepared to get rid of the trees by chopping and explosion. After that, the second batch of equipment will be moved in,” Liu Ning, chief engineer at the Ministry of Water Resources, was quoted as saying on CCTV.

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

The number of deaths from the quake has climbed further toward an expected toll of 80,000 or more. The Cabinet said Tuesday that 67,183 people were confirmed killed — up by about 2,000 from a day earlier — and 20,790 were still missing.

When something kills 20x as many of your citizens as a terrorist attack, the only possible option is to invade and destroy. Expect China to follow Bush’s logic and invade Mars before the year is out.