Chinese soldiers prepared yesterday to blow up earthquake debris blocking a river where rising waters threatened to inundate disaster victims.
Two weeks after the magnitude 7.9 earthquake hit central Sichuan Province, lakes formed by obstructed rivers clogged by landslides complicated the recovery efforts that were already straining to find shelter for millions of homeless.
One of the most powerful aftershocks since the May 12 quake killed at least eight people on Sunday, the Cabinet said, adding to the death toll that the government has said would surpass 80,000.
To fight the flood risk, 1,800 soldiers arrived yesterday on foot at the new Tangjiashan lake in Beichuan County, each carrying 10kg of explosives to blast through the debris, Xinhua news agency said.
The lake is 3.2km upstream from the center of Beichuan County. Thousands of people who remained there after the initial earthquake have been evacuated in recent days as a precaution.
With weather clearing that had prevented helicopter flights, an earth mover was also lifted in the area to help remove debris, cable TV footage showed.
But thunderstorms were forecast for parts of Sichuan later yesterday and today, the China Meteorological Administration said, adding that they “could increase the risks posed by river blockages in some quake-hit areas.” The backed-up lake is one of several dozen in Sichuan.
In Anxian County, a landslide blocked the Chaping river, submerging Shuangdian village.
Residents say the lake has been rising by about 2.5m a day.
“The water was covering the road, and two days later I could not see the roof of my house anymore,” said Liu Zhongfu, 31, a truck driver who built his two-story wooden house himself, standing on a mountain overlooking the new lake. A sofa and bits of wood that were once part of houses could be seen floating among the debris in the milky green water.
Liu was working away from home when the earthquake hit. His wife, three-month-old daughter and 60-year-old mother were all unhurt.
Water there was backed up 3km along the river, said Wang Li (王力), county Chinese Communist Party secretary.
Elsewhere, 600 people were voluntarily evacuated from Guanzhuang in Qingchuan County because of landslide worries.
“There’s no danger for this exact moment from flooding but we are very worried because the whole mountain is loose,” said Ma Jian (馬建), a local official.
Problems with dams and reservoirs from the earthquake and its aftershocks have also been reported in other provinces.
The Water Resources Ministry said that three small reservoirs in Shaanxi Province, north of Sichuan, were in danger of collapse after the strong aftershock on Sunday. A total 2,383 reservoirs were in danger across the country, the ministry said.
Also See: Child policy relaxed after quake
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has