The news agency said the soldiers arrived at the lake early Monday "and immediately began work to defuse the danger of a major flooding."
Hazy weather prevented helicopter flights to the area, and forecasts for rain increased the risk that lakes could overflow.
Rain will "not only cause the amount of water going into the lakes to increase, but also influence their normal structure, so the situation is quite serious," said Vice Minister E. "It is a daunting task because of the unpredictability of when the barrier lakes will burst."
About 20,000 people have been evacuated from the disaster area due to the flood risk, and the total relocated could rise to 100,000, said Liu Ning, chief engineer at the Ministry of Water Resources.
The ministry also said 69 dams in Sichuan were in danger of collapse from quake damage, but reservoirs have been drained to lessen the risk. Authorities have said the world's largest water project—the Three Gorges dam, located about 350 miles (563 kilometers) east of the epicenter—was not damaged.
(Read: "Radiation Contained in Quake Area, China Says" [May 23, 2008].)
Trickling Back Home
Elsewhere in the disaster zone, people ventured cautiously back to homes to retrieve belongings. More than 15 million homes were destroyed in the disaster, and the Chinese government has appealed for tents to help shelter survivors.
But some decided the risk of entering damaged buildings was too great.
In Hanwang, 58-year-old Zhang Heqing was carrying a handful of plastic bags and had planned to go into his apartment block, but the coal mine employee said he had second thoughts.
"I just don't dare to go in," he said. "I live on the fifth floor and the staircase is blocked and you can't even open the doors."
Down the street, retiree Huang Huimei, 75, and her husband were busy stacking pots, pans, chairs, and bed boards in a pile for movers to take to the provincial capital of Chengdu, where her son lives. Her building remained standing but had serious cracks and was not safe for habitation.
She had spent most of the time since the quake caring for her 95-year-old mother.
"I don't know if we'll be back," she said as her husband handed her part of a cooking stove through the front window of their ground floor apartment. "These apartments weren't that safe before the quake."
Panda Sighted
Meanwhile, one of two giant pandas missing since the quake from a major preserve for the endangered animals in Wolong, near the epicenter, was sighted Sunday, Xinhua said. The panda, named Xixi, disappeared before staff could reach it, but was believed safe, the report said. The search will continue Monday.
Some of the panda shelters at the world-famous Wolong reserve were damaged in the quake.
Eight pandas from the reserve are spending the next six months at the Beijing Zoo on a special Olympics visit that was planned long before the quake. The animals were flown Saturday afternoon by special plane to Beijing from Chengdu.
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Associated Press writers William Foreman in Hanwang and Henry Sanderson in Beijing contributed to this report.
