Top politicians tell locals they can 'build home town even better with their own hands' after China quake
CHINA struggled to bury its dead and help tens of thousands of injured and homeless yesterday when a powerful aftershock brought new havoc four days after the earthquake thought to have killed more than 50,000.
President Hu Jintao flew to battered
Sichuan province and Premier Wen Jiabao said the damage could exceed the devastating 1976 tremor in the northeastern city of Tangshan that killed up to 300,000 people.
Wen called on officials to ensure social stability as frustration and exhaustion grew among survivors, many of whom lost everything and are living in tents or in the open air.
China has said it expects the death toll to exceed 50,000. About 4.8 million people have lost their homes. Thousands of people were heading on foot for Mianyang, a city near the epicentre, saying they were abandoning their ruined villages.
Hu and Wen stressed that searching for and rescuing survivors remained the top priority. "We cannot talk about giving up too easily," Wen said. "I believe people in the quake area can definitely build their hometown even better with their own hands."
The country is on precautionary alert against possible radiation leaks, according to a government website seen on Friday. A nuclear research reactor, two nuclear fuel production sites and two nuclear weapons sites are located in Sichuan province.
France's nuclear protection watchdog, the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety, said that the earthquake caused minor damage to nuclear facilities being dismantled but no apparent radioactivity leaks.
As officials assessed the risk, thousands of residents streamed away from Beichuan, one of the towns worst hit by the quake, in search of shelter, carrying babies, bags and suitcases. Almost every building in the town has been demolished or damaged beyond habitation.
Caring for the untold tens of thousands or more survivors across the earthquake zone is stretching government resources.
Shifang's town square became a tented encampment holding 2,000 people, and co-ordinator Li Yuanshao said there were not enough tents, though there have so far been no outbreaks of disease.
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. He and his family were sleeping on donated bamboo mats and blankets.
Nearer the epicentre in the town of Yingxiu, helicopters dropped leaflets urging people to "unite together" and giving survival tips, such as not drinking dirty water. Power and water remained cut off, forcing dazed, exhausted locals to hike up a steep hill to a spring to fetch water.
On another hillside, at least 80 corpses in plastic body bags were placed in a trench dug by soldiers.
Dozens of people trudged up the winding mountain road to Beichuan, also near the epicentre, carrying backpacks and bags with food and medical supplies, on a quest for missing relatives. Military trucks and cranes edged around huge fallen boulders.
To the south, in the village of Houzhuang, residents said aid and troops had yet to reach them. "We ate some corn, but we are suffering from diarrhoea after drinking water from the ditch for two days," one said.
The aftershock, measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale, hit Lixian, west of the epicentre in Wenchuan, cutting newly repaired roads and telecommunications.
"A number of vehicles were buried in landslides. The casualties were not known," Xinhua news agency said.
China has 130,000 army and paramilitary troops in the disaster area, but supplies and rescuers have struggled to reach the worst-hit areas.
The first foreign rescue team, about 60 people from Japan, reached Sichuan yesterday. Rescue teams from Russia, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore have also arrived. It is the first time China has accepted international help since 1949. The World Food Programme is sending ready-to-eat meals for 118,000 people.
Despite the growing death toll, rescuers were still finding survivors among the rubble. A 50-year-old worker was rescued from a collapsed fertiliser plant after being trapped for about 100 hours
and at least six people in Beichuan were rescued yesterday, including three school girls 87 hours after the tremor.
There were concerns about epidemics if the dead were not soon buried or cremated.
"A lot of tourists have been killed. We don't know how to deal with the bodies, some of which have been highly decomposed, but their relatives will come to look for them," an army officer in the badly hit Yinmugou resort in Pengzhou told Sichuan TV. "I am really worried about epidemics," he said.
Hundreds of damaged dams have raised fears of collapse or flooding that could inundate towns and cities struggling to recover from the quake.
China has asked the US for satellite images to help find victims and damaged infrastructure.
The full article contains 832 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
