China fights flood threat in earthquake zone

ANXIAN, China — China grappled with backed-up rivers and reservoirs in danger of collapse, along with looming storms that threatened Monday to compound damage from the country's worst earthquake in three decades.

Two weeks after the magnitude 7.9 earthquake centered in Sichuan province, the confirmed death toll rose to 65,080 with 23,150 people still missing, the Cabinet said. The government has said the final number of dead is expected to exceed 80,000.

Many of the disaster victims were children, prompting officials to clarify the country's strict one-child policy guidelines.

The Chengdu Population and Family Planning Committee in the capital of Sichuan province said Monday that families whose children was killed, severely injured or disabled in the quake can get a certificate to have another child.

Chen Xueyun's 8-year-old son, Weixi, was killed when the family's apartment in Qingchuan collapsed. Chen said he searched three days before finding the boy's body. He wears his son's blue plastic watch as a reminder.

Monday's announcement could offer some parents some hope, Chen said, after their grief subsides.

"If they are still sad and depressed, it's impossible to talk about another baby," he said. "But in the future, it could be quite helpful for them."

On Monday, 1,800 soldiers arrived on foot at the new Tangjiashan lake in Beichuan county to fight the flood risk, each carrying 22 pounds of explosives to blast through the debris, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The lake is 2 miles upstream from the center of Beichuan county. Thousands of people who remained there after the initial earthquake have been evacuated in recent days as a precaution.

With weather clearing that had prevented helicopter flights, heavy equipment was also lifted in the area to help remove debris, state media reported.

But thunderstorms were forecast for parts of Sichuan later Monday and Tuesday, the China Meteorological Administration said, adding they "could increase the risks posed by river blockages in some quake-hit areas."

The rains were likely to put more pressure on dams and reservoirs weakened by the quake. The storms herald the start of the summer rainy season that accounts for more than 70 percent of the 2 feet of rain that falls on the area each year.

The backed-up lake is one of several dozen in Sichuan.

In An country, about 30 miles to the south of Beichuan, a landslide blocked the Chaping river, submerging Shuangdian village.