(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-05-26 06:47

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.

Premier Wen Jiabao (Front 1st L) and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (Front 2nd L) hold a press conference on the rubble at Yingxiu town of Wenchuan County, quake-hit southwest China's Sichuan Province, May 24, 2008. Wen Jiabao met with Ban Ki-moon in Yingxiu Saturday. [Xinhua]

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 east of the epicenter -- was not damaged.

Elsewhere in the disaster zone, people ventured cautiously back to homes to retrieve belongings, 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. My husband worked for the coal mine and it's supposed to rebuild the company apartments. But who knows when."

More than 15 million homes were destroyed in the disaster.

Meanwhile, one of two 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.

The pandas' home at the world-famous Wolong reserve was badly damaged in the quake and five staff members were killed.

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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