|
| WORLD NEWS - WORLD NEWS - China disaster |
|
 13 May China earthquake death toll tops 12,000
The death toll from China's most devastating earthquake in three decades has jumped to at least 12,000, according to official sources who also noted that storms are hampering rescuers in the most devastated areas.
Chinese state media reports indicated that the number of dead from the 7.9 magnitude quake was likely to soar much higher.
Reports in the government controlled Xinhua news agency said 10,000 people were buried in the Mianzhu area of south-western Sichuan province alone. "The death toll from this disaster has already reached 11,921," Wang Zhenyao, disaster relief chief under the Ministry of Civil Affairs, told reporters.
"The first priority is to save people... As long as there is the slightest hope, we will try to save them," Wang said, adding that the biggest threat to life was now mudslides.
Analysts said it wasn’t clear whether Wang's toll was confined to Sichuan province and that hundreds more have died in neighbouring provinces.
A strong aftershock rocked Chengdu, capital of Sichuan, on Tuesday afternoon, one of more than 1,950 over the past day and keeping nervous residents on edge. "Office workers in downtown Chengdu took to the streets again after the quake," Xinhua said, adding it was thought to be the strongest since Monday's tremor.
An official from China's seismological bureau official said more strong aftershocks could still hit Sichuan. Heavy storms and wrecked roads are hampering efforts to reach areas hardest-hit by the earthquake, with officials reporting that military helicopters sent to the area could not yet land.
Government sources said rescuers in Sichuan had worked frantically through the night, pulling bodies from homes, schools, factories and hospitals demolished by the quake, which rolled from Sichuan across much of China and was felt as far away as Bangkok and Hanoi.
In Dujiangyan, about 900 teenagers were buried under a collapsed three-storey school building.
|
|
|
|
|
)
