Draining Quake Lake Floods China Town

A town devastated by the Sichuan earthquake was flooded today as soldiers worked to drain a dangerous quake lake, reports Reuters. Water whooshed into Beichuan after explosives and missiles were used to blast holes in the dam created by the earthquake. Some 250,000 people downstream had already been evacuated.

The water level in the dangerously unstable dam is now steadily falling, but the flooding of the earthquake-ravaged town has brought fresh sorrow to survivors. Many had hoped that the bodies of their loved ones could still be retrieved from the rubble, along with valuables and mementos. "Now I guess we can never go back," said one man as he watched the water rush in. "This is heartbreaking." (More China earthquake stories.)