Pithaly

I mean, here we have weapons being used for peaceful purposes. These are Chinese soldiers and one must admire their resourcefulness and readiness to take such a risk as firing missiles at the landslide to create a pathway for the water, so that it flows at just the right rate.

The Chinese General who was in charge needs to honoured in the lines Patton!

This culminates a news item that I've been following very closely.

"Torrents of muddy water gushed out of the lake throughout the day, sweeping through towns and villages in Sichuan province that were flattened by last month's devastating earthquake, which left over 86,000 people dead or missing."

"After a nervous few hours, the water in the lake fell below the top-alert level without causing any major flooding problems downstream. "

"Those efforts included firing small missiles and using dynamite to clear boulders from the planned spillways -- dramatic measures implemented in recent days that finally cleared the channels enough for Tuesday's massive draining."

"Throughout Tuesday, water flowed steadily out of the lake 50 times faster than it was coming in, Xinhua said -- a rate roughly the equivalent of two Olympic-sized swimming pools being drained every second. "