Survivors pulled from rubble of China quake
By AUDRA ANG, Associated Press Writer
57 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080516/ap_on_re_as/china_earthquake
BEICHUAN, China - Rescuers pulled survivors from the rubble Friday who
had been buried for four days as a strong aftershock sparked
landslides near the epicenter of this week's powerful earthquake.
The first foreign rescue workers since Monday's magnitude 7.9 temblor
were allowed to the scene, and helicopters dropped leaflets urging
people to "unite together" and providing survival tips. Officials have
said the quake's final toll could reach 50,000.
A day past what experts call the critical three-day window for finding
survivors, rescuers pulled a nurse to safety who had been trapped for
96 hours in the debris of a clinic in Beichuan county, Xinhua
re****ted.
A call from the ruins of an apartment building drew a group of
volunteers, who spent more than four hours using hands and spades to
rescue a middle-aged woman. Brought to the surface, she could not
speak and was given to medics.
"She had the will to live," said Xu Tao, one of the volunteers, a
demobilized soldier and now an office worker in the eastern city of
Tangshan. "I'm just exhausted."
About 10 people were pulled free Friday. Survivors also were being
found elsewhere, with a man pulled from the wreckage of a fertilizer
plant near ****fang city.
Dr. Irving "Jake" Jacoby of the University of California, San Diego,
said the vast majority of people are rescued in the first 24 hours
after a disaster, and that the chances of survival drop as each day
p*****.
If someone is trapped but is relatively uninjured, they could survive
for a week or even 10 days, and in extreme cir***stances two weeks or
more.
"They could live for a week without food but water is needed" to
prevent dehydration," said Jacoby, who heads a medical assistance team
in San Diego that responded to the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in
California, Hurricane Katrina and other disasters.
On Friday afternoon, an aftershock rattled parts of central Sichuan
province, the official Xinhua News Agency said. A number of vehicles
were buried on a road leading to the epicenter, and casualties were
unknown. The U.S. Geological Survey said the latest tremor measured
magnitude 5.5, one of the strongest among dozens that have shaken the
area.
Education and housing officials, meanwhile, took the rare move of
fielding questions online from angry Chinese citizens over the many
children who died in the quake. The official death toll had risen to
about 22,069 on Friday, and another 14,000 still were buried in
Sichuan.
The government said it would investigate why so many school buildings
collapsed in the quake =97 destroying about 6,900 classrooms, not
including the hardest-hit counties =97 and severely punish anyone
responsible for shoddy construction.
More than 4 million apartments and homes had been damaged or destroyed
in Sichuan province, according to Housing Minister Jiang Weixin. Jiang
said the water supply situation was "extremely serious" in Sichuan,
and not flowing at all in 20 cities and counties.
Caring for the untold tens of thousands or more survivors across the
earthquake zone was stretching government resources.
****fang's town square became a tented encampment holding 2,000 people
and coordinator Li Yuanshao said there weren't enough tents. Many had
walked from surrounding towns with few belongings.
"We brought almost nothing, only the clothes we are wearing," said
Zhang Xinyong, a junior in high school who had walked several hours to
the camp. They were sleeping on donated bamboo mats and blankets.
In the town of Yingxiu, helicopters dropped leaflets urging people to
"unite together" and giving survival tips like not to drink dirty
water. Power and water remained cut off, forcing dazed, exhausted
locals to hike 40 yards up a steep hill to a spring to fetch water.
On another hillside, at least 80 corpses in plastic body bags were
placed into a trench dug by soldiers.
Dozens of people trudged up a winding mountain road to Beichuan,
carrying backpacks and bags with food and medical supplies, on a quest
for missing relatives.
Liu Jingyong, a 43-year-old migrant worker searching for his cousin,
traveled two days by bus and now foot just to get near his relative's
home.
"I have not had any information from him," Liu said. "This is so hard
on me."
One villager, Pan Guihui, stood on the side of the road with a vacant
look on her face.
She and her husband had just hiked 13 hours with her 1-year-old child,
father and two brothers away from their destroyed village further up
the mountain. They had stayed in the rubble until rescue workers
arrived and ordered them out because of fears of landslides.
"I have just been so frightened this whole time. I don't know what we
are going to do," said Pan, 35. The only belongings the family had
were some clothes and a little food, among hundreds camped along the
road. "We've lost everything. There's nothing left of our village,
nothing left of our home."
As she spoke, hundreds of soldiers marched by in long columns out of
Beichuan, some carrying shovels.
In the city of Hanwang, Zhou Furen walked hours by foot =97 borrowing
the army green shoes she was wearing =97 to a factory where her son had
worked and remained missing.
"I've been coming here every day, sitting here in the early morning,
waiting," she said, weeping. "He's been missing for more than three
days now. But for my son I would come every day."
President Hu Jintao made his first trip to the disaster zone, rallying
troops among the massive relief operation of some 130,000 soldiers and
police.
"The challenge is still severe, the task is still arduous and the time
is pressing," Hu was quoted as saying by Xinhua. "Quake relief work
has entered into the most crucial phase. We must make every effort,
race against time and overcome all difficulties to achieve the final
victory of the relief efforts."
The first international rescue crews arrived in the disaster area,
after China dropped its initial reluctance to accept foreign
personnel. Japanese rescuers started work early Friday, and teams from
Russia, Singa****e and South Korea later joined operations, Xinhua
re****ted.
It was the first time ever that China accepted outside professionals
for domestic disaster relief, Foreign Ministry counselor Li Wenliang
told Xinhua.
The government said it had allocated a total of $772 million for
earthquake relief, according to the central bank's Web site, up
sharply from $159 million two days ago.
China also has received $457 million in donated money and goods for
rescue efforts, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, including
$83 million from 19 countries and four international organizations.
Given the widespread destruction, AIR Worldwide =97 a catastrophe risk
modeling firm =97 estimated losses to both insured and uninsured
property would likely exceed $20 billion.
___
Associated Press writers Tini Tran in Hanwang, Anita Chang in Beijing
and Stephanie Nano in New York contributed to this re****t.
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