Rescuers race against time

2008-05-15 07:20

Dujiangyan - More than 50 000 people are dead, missing or buried under rubble after China's devastating earthquake, officials said on Wednesday as the full horror of the disaster began to emerge.

Rescue teams who punched into the quake's stricken epicentre reported whole towns all but wiped off the map, spurring frantic efforts to bring emergency relief to the survivors.

Planes and helicopters air-dropped supplies, 100 troops parachuted into a county that had been cut off, and rescuers in cities and towns across Sichuan province fought to pull the living and the dead from the debris.

But the overwhelming message that came back from this southwestern province was that only now is a picture slowly beginning to form of the epic scale of Monday's 7.9-magnitude quake.

State media quoted Sichuan vice governor Li Chengyun saying that based on "incomplete" figures, 14 463 people were confirmed dead in the province as of mid-afternoon on Wednesday.

Nearly 26 000 were buried in rubble and nearly 15 000 missing, he added.

Human tragedy

But far beyond the numbers is the human tragedy behind China's worst quake in a generation as rescue teams claw through twisted metal and concrete.

They were looking for people like He Xinghao, 15, whose lifeless body was eventually pulled from the debris of a school close to 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 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.

It was a scene repeated across Sichuan - a province often better known to foreigners for its endangered giant pandas.

The destruction around the epicentre in remote Wenchuan county is massive, with whole mountainsides sheared off, highways ripped apart and building after building levelled.

Cries for help were heard from a flattened school in Yingxiu, where people tried to dig out survivors with their bare hands, state media said.

Houses 'razed to the ground'

"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 Yingxiu alone, Xinhua quoted a local official as saying, with only 2 300 surviving.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said 100 000 military personnel and police had been mobilised.

"Time is life," he urged rescuers.

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.

- AFP