China has evacuated more than 150,000 people living below a swollen lake formed by this month's devastating earthquake amid fears it could burst and trigger massive flooding, state media said on Wednesday. China also called on neighbour Japan to send its military to help with relief operations, Japan's foreign ministry said. The Tangjiashan lake was created when landslides caused by the May 12 earthquake blocked the Jianjiang river above the town and county of Beichuan in mountainous Sichuan province, near the epicentre of China's most destructive earthquake in decades. The official death toll from the 7.9 magnitude quake is already more than 68,000 and is certain to rise further, with nearly 20,000 listed as missing. Aftershocks on Tuesday toppled 420,000 houses, many already uninhabitable. China's request to Japan, which Tokyo said it was considering, would mark the first time Japan's military has been deployed in China since the end of World War Two and underscores the huge challenge the country is facing to rebuild. Sino-Japanese ties, long troubled by Japan's brutal occupation of parts of China from 1931-45, have been on the mend in recent months and Japan sent rescue teams and a medical team to Sichuan province shortly after the May 12 quake. Chinese President Hu Jintao told a group of visiting Taiwanese politicians that relief efforts were proving hard. "The quake's massive destruction, huge casualties and the extreme difficult relief work are all very rare in history," Hu said. "It has caused great losses to human lives and property. We are deeply saddened." As it struggles to provide relief to the stricken region, authorities were also trying to stave off further disaster from its unstable dams and reservoirs. Downstream from the Tangjiashan lake, residents were evacuated overnight as engineers dug a diversion channel to prevent flooding. Up to 1.3 million people could be relocated if the lake barrier collapses entirely, the China Daily said in its online edition.
