No order for mass evacuation in China over flood fears
Posted: 31 May 2008 0011 hrs

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BEIJING : A local government spokesman and residents in China's quake zone said on Friday there had been no order for a mass evacuation over fears a lake may burst its banks.

China's official Xinhua news agency released a report saying 1.3 million residents had been ordered to evacuate on Friday due to concerns the "quake lake" may send torrents of water downstream.

"Tan Li... issued an order that 1.3 million people living downstream (of) Tangjiashan, a swelling quake-induced lake, must evacuate to higher grounds," Xinhua reported.

Tan Li is the Communist Party secretary of Mianyang city, which is in the danger zone.

However, a spokesman at the Mianyang city's information office said the report was not true.

"We have never issued an order to evacuate all the people in the city," said the spokesman, who declined to give his name. Asked whether there had been an order to evacuate 1.3 million people, he replied: "No."

Residents in Mianyang also said there had been no such order.

"People here have been not been told to evacuate," a receptionist at the Beautiful Office Family Hotel told AFP by phone.

"If the city government orders us to evacuate, it would be announced on television. The government would also send vehicles onto the streets to announce that."

Another receptionist at the Prince Hotel in Mianyang said: "People have been doing evacuation drills for a few days now, but only drills. There has been no order to evacuate."

- AFP /ls