A military helicopter carrying 10 people injured in China's devastating earthquake and four crew members crashed in fog and turbulence on Saturday and authorities were searching for survivors, state media said yesterday.
The Russian-designed Mi-171 transport helicopter crashed on Saturday afternoon in Wenchuan County, Xinhua news agency reported.
Meanwhile, troops equipped with diggers and backhoes finished digging a channel to siphon off water from an earthquake-formed lake that authorities feared could burst and further devastate stricken areas.
The lake formed above Beichuan town in Sichuan Province when a hillside plunged into a river valley during the May 12 quake. It is the largest of more than 30 quake-formed lakes.
More than 600 troops who had been working around the clock for six days finished digging the trench on Saturday evening, Xinhua said.
The channel — nearly 500m long and 10m wide — was meant to drain off some of the lake as its water level continues to rise, Xinhua said.
As a precaution, authorities were also evacuating about 200,000 people who could suffer from flooding if the lake bursts.
Downstream, people packed belongings and evacuated the villages of Jiuling and Qinglian yesterday. Soldiers in camouflage fatigues and orange life vests patrolled the empty streets. Warnings spray-painted in red on one building in Qinglian showed how high waters might reach if the dam bursts.
Seven thousand of the quake dead were children, Xinhua reported on Saturday, and another 16,000 children were injured.
The quake was especially painful to many Chinese because it killed so many children — many of whom had no siblings because of the government’s population-control policy that limits many families to one child.
The destruction of almost 7,000 classrooms has led to complaints from angry parents that schools were poorly built.
In the town of Juyuan, about 100 parents marked International Children’s Day yesterday by gathering to mourn their children killed when a middle school collapsed. The parents also vented their anger at school and local officials.
On a large, white banner hanging on a part of the school that still stands, someone had written that “a blood debt” should be paid by those responsible for allegedly shoddy construction.
One parent circulated a letter that thanked the Chinese Communist Party and government for their help, but also said parents were suing school leaders and local education authorities.
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