In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, a student helps his schoolmate stranded in the ruins of a high school in the earthquake-affected Beichuan County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Tuesday, May 13, 2008. The death toll from a powerful earthquake in China that toppled buildings, schools and chemical plants climbed Tuesday to about 10,000, while untold numbers remained trapped after the country's worst quake in three decades.
The full horror of the devastating China earthquake began to emerge Wednesday as rescuers discovered whole towns all but wiped off the map, pushing the death toll well above 20,000.
Military and police teams punched into the heart of the disaster zone, with 100 troops parachuting into a county that was previously cut off while planes and helicopters air-dropped emergency supplies.
But the message that came back from this mountainous corner of southwestern Sichuan province was that town after town was flattened by the 7.9-magnitude quake that struck two days ago.
The death toll has soared well above 20,000, but that toll is rising by the hour as more information comes in from stricken communities.
"The losses have been severe," Wang Yi, who heads an armed police unit sent into the epicentre zone, was quoted as saying by Sichuan Online news site.
"Some towns basically have no houses left. They have all been razed to the ground."
At least 7,700 people died in the small town of Yingxiu alone, state media cited a local government official as saying, with only 2,300 surviving.
Across Sichuan, countless thousands more people are missing or buried under the rubble of shattered homes, schools and factories.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said 100,000 military personnel and police had been mobilised, indicating the epic scale of the disaster. "Time is life," he told rescuers.
The destruction around the epicentre in remote Wenchuan county is massive, with whole mountainsides sheared off, highways ripped apart and building after building levelled.
The figures are numbing: more than 5,400 dead in Mianyang, up to 5,000 in Beichuan, 3,000 in Mianzhu, 2,600 in Deyang, 500 so far in Wenchuan, hundreds more in the provincial capital Chengdu and other towns and cities.
But far beyond the numbers is the human tragedy behind China's worst quake in a generation as rescue teams pull bodies and badly injured survivors out of the ruins while grief-stricken families search for their loved ones.
He Xinghao, 15, was not among the lucky few. His body was dragged from the debris of a school 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the epicentre.
Like many other Chinese of his age, strict population policies had made him an only child, and he was showered with affection by his entire family.
"He was such a good and well-behaved boy. He always did his homework," said his aunt, Ge Mi, as fresh tears flowed from her reddened eyes.
Cries for help were heard from a flattened school in Yingxiu, where people tried to dig out survivors from the twisted metal and concrete with their bare hands, state media said.
The air drop started with planes and helicopters flying dozens of sorties, dropping tonnes of food and relief aid into the worst-hit zone, most of it cut off from the outside world by landslides and road closures.
As well as Yingxiu, CCTV television said air drops were also made in nearby Mianyang, Mianzhu and Pengzhou, while helicopters flew to Wenchuan with food, drinks , tents, communications equipment and other supplies.
The rescue effort has been badly disrupted since Monday by heavy rain , and the Meteorological Authority forecast more later in the week, raising the risk of fresh landslides.
Wednesday's leg of the Olympic torch relay in eastern Jianxi province began with a minute's silence before the runners set off.
Organisers of the Beijing Olympics are scaling down the relay as the torch makes it way to the capital for the Games in August, in a further blow to its troubled round-the-world journey after earlier protests over Tibet.
World powers including the United States, European Union and United Nations as well as the International Olympic Committee have rallied round with offers of help.
China welcomed the offers but said conditions were "not yet ripe" to allow in foreign rescue teams, citing damage to transport links.
A Japanese foreign ministry official in charge of emergency aid said Tokyo offered rescue teams with sniffer dogs, but China had made no request.
Australian and South Korean expertise was also politely declined, although China did accept one million dollars in aid from Seoul.
"We were told that China cannot receive rescuers now due to poor condition of transportation systems," a Japanese foreign ministry official explained.
Agence France-Presse - 5/14/2008 9:07 AM GMT
China quake: Death toll tops 40,000 AFP
Despite the overwhelming odds against finding any more survivors under the rubble, rescue workers yesterday saved a 60-year-old woman, Wang Youqun, nearly 200 hours after the earthquake, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.
Wang was in a temple in the town of Pengzhou when the earthquake, 8.0 on the Richter scale, hit on May 12. She fell into a coma but eventually crept out and was found in rubble yesterday, it said. She survived by drinking rainwater, Xinhua said.
Hong Kong-based Phoenix television said she was in a stable condition. In another case, rescuers saved Ma Yuanjiang after a 30-hour dig that included chiselling through 10 slabs of cement, Xinhua said. The team fed the 31-year-old sugary water through a straw as they broke through the rubble of a power plant where he was an executive, Xinhua said.
Ma was able to speak, eat and drink small amounts as he was rushed to hospital but his left forearm had to be amputated, it said. Another man, Peng Guohua, was saved on Monday in a lime mine after he drank his own urine to survive, according to state press. Such improbable survival stories have inspired many Chinese, who on Monday came to an unprecedented three-minute standstill to honour the victims of the earthquake.
But the number of rescues has tapered off, and the frantic pace of searching for survivors in the endless rubble has slowed, as the reality sets in that finding any more people alive after so long is almost impossible. Meanwhile, the government said that the death toll from the earthquake had risen to 40,075.
A cabinet spokesman said hours earlier the number of dead and missing was nearly 66,000. During a meeting with his cabinet, Premier Wen Jiabao ordered 900,000 tents to be sent to the disaster area over the next month and up to one million makeshift structures by August.
"We are setting up relocation and resettlement centres for the affected people. That is why we most need tents in large quantities," Jiang Li, vice minister of civil affairs, told reporters. T
he earthquake has triggered an outpouring of sympathy around the world, with both US President George W. Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy personally visiting Chinese embassies to sign condolence books. But international criticism started to build over China's decision to let in foreign rescuers only three days after the earthquake.
"There was a delay in the decision-making. It would have been better if the decision was quicker," Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said in Tokyo.
A Japanese team, the first official foreign team on the scene, was heading home without finding any survivors, although another Japanese unit left Japan on Tuesday to provide medical relief. Across southwestern China, tens of thousands of residents ran for safety on Tuesday over fears of another earthquake, carrying bedding, chairs, clothes and other possessions.
"Anyone who says he is not afraid is just kidding," said Zhu Yuejin, a 23-year-old saleswoman who spent the night in a car. A warning on the Sichuan government website, quoting seismological authorities, said that a strong aftershock of 6.0 to 7.0 magnitude would strike the same area ravaged by last week's massive tremor.
But Du Jianguo, a Beijing-based researcher with China's Institute of Earthquake Science, said it was impossible to predict aftershocks so accurately.
"I don't know who made such a forecast, but personally I don't believe it," he told AFP. Fuelling fears among the superstitious, residents of the southern city of Zunyi reported a massive migration of frogs and toads, which also covered Sichuan towns days before the May 12 earthquake, according to state media.
China has been hit by more than 150 aftershocks measuring 4.0 or higher on the Richter scale since the initial tremor, including one early on Tuesday that measured 5.0.
That tremor appeared to cause further damage in the quake zone, which spans 100,000 square kilometres of mountainous Sichuan, an area roughly three times the size of Belgium.
The warning of the powerful aftershock set off nerves on China's stock markets, contributing to a nearly 4.5 per cent drop in share prices, dealers said.
The central government announced a daily 10 yuan (US$1.43) allowance for quake victims, lasting three months, and also ordered tax relief and loan extensions to be applied in the disaster zone. - AFP
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