Chinese troops have begun easing pressure on a dangerous swollen 'quake lake', with water gushing into a man-made sluice in an operation monitored by satellite.
Hundreds of troops had been mobilised to dig a sluice channel to release some of the water in the lake that is threatening hundreds of thousands of people downstream in southwestern Sichuan province.
The Tangjiashan lake is the largest of more than 30 such dams formed when last month's earthquake triggered landslides that blocked rivers, raising fears of secondary flooding disasters.
The draining of the 220m cubic metres of pent-up water was earlier delayed while troops rushed to expand the channel, worried the dam wall of rock and mud could give way and unleash a dangerous surge.
