China aftershocks injure 63

As aftershocks wreaked more havoc, the government rushed to evacuate an additional 80,000 people from Sichuan province on Tuesday because of the threat of flooding from a lake formed by quake-induced landslides, state media reported.

Hundreds of engineers and soldiers worked to create a sluiceway to drain a “barrier lake” in Tangjiashan. Anxious residents downstream in Mian- yang continued to flee the city or scurry to higher ground. Authorities previously evacuated more than 70,000 people.

Two temblors, measured by Chinese officials as magnitude 5.4 and 5.7, hit Sichuan’s Qingchuan County and a neighboring province in the afternoon, injuring at least 63 people and toppling thousands of houses, according to the official New China News Agency.

“This is more scary than floods,” said Bin Jun, 27, who works maintaining computers in Mianyang. “People are getting a little irritated. It’s already been half a month [since the initial quake] and there are still many aftershocks.”

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Death toll raised

A powerful aftershock Sunday, centered in Qingchuan, killed at least nine people. On Tuesday, China’s Cabinet again raised the death toll from the May 12 temblor -- to more than 67,000; 20,790 people were listed as still missing.

China is contending with 35 barrier lakes that formed when rivers were dammed by landslides mostly triggered by the initial magnitude 7.9 quake. Geologists worry that aftershocks or heavy rains could burst the barriers. The largest and perhaps most threatening of them is the one at Tangjia- shan, where the water level rose 6 more feet Tuesday. It was 82 feet below the lowest part of the barrier.

State media said that at least 600 specialists and soldiers, using bulldozers and machinery airlifted by Russian helicopters, were trying to drain the water. But experts said a diversion channel wouldn’t be in place until June 5.

As a result, authorities have drafted plans that include the evacuation of up to 1.3 million people in the area of Mianyang if the barrier at Tangjiashan completely collapses.

Even as threats of flooding and aftershocks slowed relief efforts, officials declared Tuesday that the post-quake work had entered a new stage with a focus on reconstruction and the resettlement of about 5 million people left homeless.

Most of them are living in tents, many at overcrowded refugee camps. But some are beginning to move into temporary houses that are being constructed in quake-hit areas. The government says 1.5 million such shelters will be built.

In Dujiangyan, a resort area northwest of Chengdu, the first 500 units of “Happiness Home Garden” went up in less than a week. The entrance of the compound faces a busy, smog-filled street. Red banners are hung throughout the community of long flat-roofed houses made of metal and Styrofoam. The banner at the front reads: “The [Communist] Party and State Council will be with us forever.”

On a muggy Tuesday afternoon, Zheng Kequan and his wife, Zhang Shuhua, moved into Block 26, Unit 5. Painted white and blue on the exterior, the room is about 150 square feet, with a window in the front and back. It has a concrete floor, an electrical outlet and a fluorescent light on the ceiling.

The unit is one-fifth the size of the couple’s old home, a second-story apartment that collapsed in the quake.

Zhang, 56, would have been buried had she not been outside playing mah-jongg with her friends. Zheng, 66, a doctor, was working in the hospital at the time.

“When my house collapsed, I cried and cried,” Zhang said. She and Zheng slept on a rainy street on the night after the quake, without a tent. The next day, the couple, along with their son, daughter-in-law and grandson, moved into a camp for displaced people and shared a small tent. Compared with that, “this place is great,” Zhang said.

The son and daughter-in-law are in the unit next door. Their 14-year-old son, Zheng Huo, will live with his grandparents, using one of the metal bunk beds in the room. Zhang and Zheng will sleep in a separate bed, leaving room for a few other things.

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Donations to family

People had donated several chairs, as well as boxes of instant noodles, bottled water, rice, pots and pans, two large thermoses for hot water for tea, even a portable stove.

“I’ll put the chairs here,” Zhang said, “so when guests come they can rest.”

“Everything we had is buried under the apartment, even our IDs,” said Zhang, wearing an “I love China” T-shirt that a relief worker gave her. “Our government, our country and our party cares for us.”

Her husband stood by and nodded. The couple said they expected to stay in this temporary housing for three years, until the government builds them a new home.

Sweat was dripping down Zhang’s face as she continued to tidy up the room. After finishing, she said, they would all walk down to the end of the compound and do something they hadn’t done for two weeks.

“We’re going to go for a hot shower,” she said.

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don.lee@latimes.com