more interesting stuff out of China
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/09/asia/quake.php
QINGLIAN, China: Chinese soldiers used antitank weapons to blast away rocks and mud holding back waters in an earthquake-formed lake that threatens more than one million people living downstream with flooding.
The Tangjiashan "quake lake," formed when a landslide set off by the May 12 earthquake blocked the flow of the Tongkou River, has continued swelling despite the hasty digging of a diversion canal to ease pressure on the barrier.
The government was working to head off a new catastrophe at the same time as it cared for the five million people left homeless by the quake, which killed nearly 70,000 people. More than 1.3 million people live downriver from Tangjiashan.
About 120 troops of the People's Liberation Army were sent Monday to the lake to continue the draining operation, which included deepening the diversion channel and digging a second spillway.
Troops were carving a third drainage channel into the unstable dam, the state media reported Monday.
Soldiers fired weapons at debris Sunday, according to reports on television and official Web sites. The operation successfully dislodged debris to speed the drainage, though the level of the lake continued to rise as water flowed in along the blocked river behind the dam, Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, reported.