Flood fears in post-quake China

China is preparing to evacuate 1.3 million people from a city threatened by post-earthquake floods.

The Tangjiashan lake in Sichuan province, southwest China, was formed when rivers were blocked by a landslide following the 7.9 earthquake two weeks ago, and is threatening to engulf the city of Mianyang.

Tangjiashan is the largest of more than 30 lakes formed by the quake, which also weakened man-made dams in the mountainous parts of the disaster zone.

Nearly 198,000 people have been evacuated to safe ground as a precaution.

Officials also said they planned to evacuate a total of 1.3 million people in and around Mianyang, a city that could face flooding, within five hours if the dam wall breached.

Work on a runoff channel from the lake has been completed and officials said that the channel was expected to discharge flood water between Sunday and Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the confirmed death toll from the quake, China's worst in three decades, has been raised to 68,977. Another 17,974 people are still missing.

Post-quake reconstruction work has only just begun, with many displaced people facing a cramped, sweltering summer in tents.

The government has vowed to punish anyone responsible for the poorly-built school buildings that collapsed in the quake, killing thousands of children.

The Chinese public has been especially outraged that schools fell while nearby apartments and government offices survived.

An official investigator said one of the schools that crumpled, the Juyuan Middle School, where hundreds of children died, was fatally weakened by poor design and materials.

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