China has evacuated more than 70,000 people near the epicentre of last month's devastating earthquake to avoid further casualties from landslides and other disasters during the country's deadly annual flood season.
Rain and floods, concentrated in China's heavily industrialised south, have killed at least 176 people and left 52 missing, as authorities struggle to shelter millions made homeless by the 7.9 magnitude quake that struck southwest Sichuan province on May 12th.
Authorities in Aba prefecture had moved 72,000 people living in "highly dangerous terrain" in Wenchuan county, the epicentre of the quake, to safer areas ahead of downpours on Wednesday night, Xinhua news agency reported today.
The three-day mass relocation end just two hours before heavy rain hit the county, Xinhua quoted local disaster prevention authorities as saying. It did not explain how the already devastated area was still home to so many people, whether they were living in tent cities or in homes, or where they would be evacuated to.
Authorities on Sunday had started to evacuate another nearly 40,000 residents from other regions of the prefecture on Sunday, the report said, without elaborating.
Since the earthquake struck, killing more than 69,000 people, Wenchuan county alone had experienced nearly 5,000 "secondary geological disasters", including hundreds of major landslides and mudslides, Xinhua said.
State television showed footage of villagers carrying belongings and picking their way gingerly down steep mountain paths.