Chinese authorities had evacuated nearly 200,000 people by early Saturday and warned more than 1 million others to be ready to leave quickly as a lake formed by a devastating earthquake threatened to breach its dam. Hundreds of Chinese troops were working around the clock to drain Sichuan province's Tangjiashan lake, 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. The official Xinhua News Agency said work on a runoff channel had been completed. It quoted Yue Xi, deputy chief of the water and electricity section of the People's Armed Police, as saying water was expected to be discharged between Sunday and Tuesday. Xinhua said «a total of 197,477 people were evacuated to safe ground as of 8 a.m. (0000 GMT) Saturday.» It did not say how the number was determined. It said Tan Li, the Communist Party chief of Mianyang, had issued another order that calls for all 1.3 million people in the area to be evacuated if «the barrier of the quake lake fully opens» and floods the area.
