We won't give up, say earthquake rescuers

May 17 2008 icWales

Rescuers held out hope of finding more survivors today, nearly five days after a powerful earthquake ravaged China’s Sichuan province, as authorities prepared for the daunting task of housing and feeding the millions left homeless.

Buoyed by finding a girl alive after 100 hours trapped in a school following Monday’s magnitude-7.9 quake, government leaders, including President Hu Jintao, said they would not give up hope of finding others.

Officials have said the earthquake’s final death toll could reach 50,000.

More than a day past what experts call the critical three-day window for finding survivors, rescuers pulled to safety a 10-year-old girl who had been trapped under her collapsed primary school for 100 hours, China Central Television reported.

With the help of a crane, dozens of workers removed the fourth grader from the rubble of Yingxiu Central Elementary School in Wenchuan after working all day. A dozen pupils had been rescued from the school, CCTV said.

The girl’s condition was not known. CCTV said medical teams were treating the girl, who looked like a dusty rag doll when she was pulled out of the wreckage, missing a shoe and with a white cloth tied over her face to protect her from the blinding light after being in darkness for so long.

Rescue teams recovered 163 people alive yesterday, CCTV said.

Mr Hu, who arrived in Sichuan yesterday, was shown on television comforting survivors and encouraging soldiers who were carrying out rescue work.

The vast majority of survivors are rescued in the first 24 hours after a disaster, with the chances of survival dropping as each day passes, said Dr. Irving Jacoby of the University of California.

A person trapped but uninjured could survive for a week or even 10 days, and in extreme circumstances two weeks or more.

"They could live for a week without food but water is needed" to prevent dehydration, said Jacoby, who heads a San Diego, California-based medical assistance team that responded to a 1989 earthquake in California, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and other disasters.

The rescue work of digging through unstable buildings is dangerous because of continuing aftershocks. Yesterday 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 epicentre, and the number of casualties was unknown.

More foreign rescuers were at work today, with teams from South Korea, Singapore and Russia joining a Japanese specialist group.

A US Air Force cargo plane loaded with tents, lanterns and 15,000 meals left Hawaii today for China. It is the first aid flight from the US to help in Sichuan province. Another air force delivery was due to go to China from Alaska.

United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon announced a grant of up to £3.5 million from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund, which will be used by UN agencies and programmes to help meet the most urgent humanitarian requirements.

China has not given a figure for the number of people left homeless, but housing minister Jiang Weixin said more than four million apartments and homes had been damaged or destroyed in Sichuan province.

He 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.

Just north of the provincial capital of Chengdu, the town square in Shifang was a tented encampment holding 2,000 people and co-ordinator Li Yuanshao said there was a lack of tents. Many people had walked in from surrounding towns with few belongings.

"We brought almost nothing, only the clothes we are wearing," said Zhang Xinyong, a high school pupil who had walked several hours to the camp.

In the town of Yingxiu, helicopters dropped leaflets urging people to "unite together" and giving tips like not to drink dirty water. Power and water remained cut off, and dazed and exhausted residents had 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.

The confirmed death toll had risen to about 22,069 yesterday, but another 14,000 were thought to be buried in Sichuan.

Xinhua said today that a German tourist had been rescued after being buried for 114 hours in earthquake rubble.

The tourist had been saved in Wenchuan, the epicentre of the massive earthquake.

China’s state news agency said soldiers have dug out a 52-year-old man who was buried in ruins for 117 hours.

The official Xinhua News Agency said the man had been buried under a collapsed building in Beichuan, not far from the epicentre of Monday’s earthquake.

Thousands of people have been seen fleeing a village near the epicentre of the earthquake due to worries of flooding.

Witnesses said today there were conflicting reports on whether a dam had burst near Beichuan, or whether a lake had overflowed.

Thousands have been seen fleeing for higher ground.