The long-awaited drainage of China's Tangjiashan "quake lake" started at 7:08 a.m. Saturday, when its water flowed into a manmade sluice channel.

A Xinhua reporter at the commanding center saw water passing the sluice channel via satellite monitor. The flow was rapid, steady and gradually increasing in volume.

The water level at the entry of the sluice channel was 740.37 meters above the sea level.

The overflow has been estimated to occur Friday night when water level reached the lowest point of 740 meters on the sluice channel, but it was delayed by a 0.6-meter-high temporary dam erected on Friday afternoon to protect workers dredging the sluice channel.

The swollen lake was formed by a massive landslide following the May 12 earthquake that jolted the country's southwest. It held more than 220 million cubic meters of water and posed a threat to about 1.3 million people downstream.

(Xinhua News Agency June 7, 2008)