A dam that partially collapsed in the outskirts of Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region early Saturday, has claimed the life of an elderly man, sent 20 residents to hospital and flooded 70 homes. 

The Lianfeng reservoir near Kaziwan village in the city's Midong district, which had been declared dangerous and was being reinforced, began to lose water around 6:10 am, the reservoir administration was quoted by the Xinhua News Agency as saying.

As many as 100,000 cubic meters of water, about a quarter of the reservoir's capacity gushed through the village and also flooded farmland and inundated 20 factories.

Surface water quickly froze as temperatures hovered around -15 C Saturday. A 65-year-old villager apparently drowned and 20 residents were treated for possible lower-leg frostbite after standing in the freezing water before being rescued, Xinhua reported.

"Many of the 20 injured, aged from 4 months to 78, were treated for frozen feet and ankles," a director surnamed Liu from the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xinjiang Medical University told the Global Times.

Two of the injured are in serious condition and are being treated at the Qidaowan branch of the hospital, Liu confirmed to the Global Times.

The publicity department of the regional Party committee told the Global Times that local authorities are still investigating what triggered the dam's failure.

The city's water resources bureau said on its official Sina Weibo in October that the reservoir, which supplies water to irrigate some 167 hectares of farmland in the village, had been labeled "dangerous" by regional authorities and a reinforcement project started late last summer. The project is estimated to cost 5.53 million yuan ($887,565) and by January 11, 64 percent of the project had been completed, said another post on the bureau's Weibo.

The city government said the reservoir has a designed capacity of 400,000 cubic meters of water, but it held only 170,000 cubic meters of water when the dam collapsed.

The reservoir is located about 25 kilometers from downtown Urumqi and does not supply its drinking water.

Water spilled across an area 250 meters wide and 60 centimeters deep, rescuers said.

A village resident, who declined to be named, said his home's floor, electric appliances and utensils are covered with ice. "The disaster before Spring Festival is a bolt of lightning out of the blue," he told the Global Times.