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MIANZHU, China : China braced Saturday for the breaching of a dangerously swollen lake in the quake-hit southwest, with water reaching a critical level and set to put an emergency drainage plan to the test.
Soldiers and police have worked furiously to dig a drainage channel to stop the "quake lake" in Sichuan province from bursting its banks and potentially threatening thousands of people downstream.
The water level in the lake has now reached a "critical point" -- at the lowest level of the channel -- the official Xinhua news agency said in a brief report early Saturday.
Up to 1.3 million people could be in danger from floods if the vast piles of rock and debris that have blocked the Jianjiang river, and created the unstable lake, burst open, officials have warned.
More than 250,000 people have already been evacuated but many others will have to be moved out if the lake empties downstream rapidly.
The lake has become one of the most pressing issues in the aftermath of the May 12 earthquake disaster in mountainous Sichuan, which killed more than 69,000 people and left millions homeless.
The controlled draining of some of the 200 million cubic metres (700 million cubic feet) of water behind the lake has not yet started, Xinhua said.
On Friday morning, the water level had climbed to within just 50 centimetres (20 inches) below the lowest point on the channel. It has now reached the critical level of 740 metres (2427 feet), Xinhua said.
More military personnel were airlifted to the dam on Friday for further drainage preparations as weather forecasts predicted rain and thunderstorms this weekend, state television said.
Crews were expected to work on widening the channel for the next three to five days, said the report, which showed them toiling beneath the debris dam.
Also Friday, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) said floods spurred by the bursting of the lake could put the country's longest oil pipeline at risk.
The Lanzhou-Chengdu-Chongqing pipeline is 60 kilometres (37.5 miles) downstream from the landslide-created Tangjiashan lake, CNPC said in a statement on its website.
Oil supplies to the disaster-hit zone and neighbouring provinces risk being cut off if the pipeline is damaged and cannot be repaired within three days, CNPC added.
The 8.0 magnitude quake triggered massive landslides in Sichuan, blocking rivers and creating more than 30 unstable "quake lakes" that are threatening millions of people.
Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush praised China's response to the quake and highlighted what he called the "unprecedented and unparalleled" flow of relief aid from America.
"My message to the Chinese government is: 'Thank you for welcoming our aid, thank you for taking a firm response to this disaster. And just know the American people care about the people of China. When a brother and sister hurts, we care about it'," he said Friday in Washington.
Foreign aid has poured into China to help the millions of survivors from China's worst disaster in a generation.
Despite the enormous relief effort, anger has grown among families about the collapse of thousands of schools in the Sichuan region amid concerns of shoddy construction. The government has appeared eager to put a lid on potential unrest and open reporting on the quake's aftermath.
"We demand an investigation and for those responsible to be punished as quickly as possible," said You Zhenghua, whose daughter Zhong Suyan was among the hundreds who died when the Juyuan Middle School collapsed during the quake.
"We don't want money or anything else. Just justice."
Parents have held unprecedented protests over the issue, blaming official corruption for shoddily-constructed school buildings that collapsed when the quake hit.
Chinese police on Friday restricted the movements of foreign journalists in the earthquake zone, the latest sign that initial openness on covering last month's disaster was drawing to a close.
Two AFP journalists were barred entry to the town of Wufu, where parents have protested the collapse of another school, while other western journalists said they were harassed and detained by police for their reporting activities.
- AFP /ls
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