MIANYANG, Sichuan, June 9 (Xinhua) -- China remains on alert Monday as the water level of Tangjiashan quake-formed lake in the southwestern province of Sichuan continues to rise after two days of drainage.

    The water level in the lake reached 742.58 meters above sea level as of 8 a.m. Monday, a rise of 0.92 meters in 24 hours and 2.21 meters higher than the manmade spillway that began operation on Saturday morning.

    As of 8 a.m. Monday, the lake's volume was 245.7 million cubic meters and the daily average influx was 115 cubic meters per second.

    The sluice appears to be operating smoothly, but water resources authorities are still keeping close watch at the site to monitor the drainage.

    A moderate rainfall and massive landslides following a 4.8-magnitude aftershock on Sunday afternoon have posed higher pressure on the dam, and experts are still monitoring the potential impact.

    Military engineers have fired short-range missiles to blast boulders in the channel to accelerate drainage. The Chengdu Military Command of the People's Liberation Army sent an additional 120-strong team to the mission on Monday.

    The water flow through the sluice channel has been widened to about 10 meters from less than five after Sunday's blast.

    The Tangjiashan "quake lake", formed after quake-triggered landslides from Tangjiashan Mountain, blocked the Tongkou River running through Beichuan County, one of the worst-hit areas in the May 12 quake.

    The largest of more than 30 quake lakes in Sichuan after the quake, Tangjiashan Lake threatens some 1 million residents living in the lower reaches of the river once the lake overflows.

    More than 250,000 people in low-lying areas in Mianyang have been relocated under a plan based on the assumption that one third of the lake volume breached the dam.

Paper tickets fade out of Beijing subway

BEIJING, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Paper tickets, which were in service for 38 years at Beijing Subway, were phased out on Monday but would hopefully enter private collection.

    An automatic fare collection (AFC) system became operational at all Beijing subway stations on Monday, requesting passengers to produce their magnetic strip tickets or mass transit smart cards twice when entering and exiting the subway gates.

     At least a dozen subway workers were standing by at Fuchengmen station in downtown Beijing on Monday morning to explain the process to passengers, most of who baffled at a line of AFC machines blocking the entrance and exit.

     Previously a passenger only needed to present his paper ticket or process his smart card upon entering a subway station.

     With the new system, however, the check-in and check-out gates remain closed until the magnetic strip tickets or smart cards are properly processed.

     "Be careful with the ticket. You'll still need it upon your exit," the subway workers would tell everyone who produced a magnetic strip ticket at the self-service ticket seller machine.

     The ticket is retrieved by the AFC system upon a passenger's exit.

     All the TVs in subway trains, which have been installed to live broadcast of Olympic events to the passengers during the Games, keep playing a video to explain how the new fare collection system works.

     The fare for a subway ride remains unchanged at two yuan.

     At Taobao.com, a popular retail website, paper subway tickets of yesteryear are already wooed by some private collectors. A ticket of the 1990s, with a face value of 0.2 yuan, is now sold for 100 times as much.

     "I don't think such tickets have much room for further appreciation though," said an online seller surnamed Liao. "After all, they have too little cultural connotation."

     Yet Liao himself has collected hundreds of subway tickets, the earliest of which were issued in the 1970s. "They'll become something when you can't lay hands on one of them."