More relief supplies heading to quake zone
Updated: 2008-05-18 09:09
The death toll from the quake rose to 28,881 nationwide as of yesterday, and 198,347 people were injured, the Information Office of the State Council said yesterday.
 A woman phones her relatives to let them know she's safe as soon as telephone services were restored in Pingwu county, Sichuan province, yesterday. [China Daily]
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Officials had earlier said that the death toll could be as high as 50,000.
Till yesterday, 145 aftershocks with a magnitude of 4 or higher had been recorded since Monday, Guo Weimin, an official of the office, told a press conference.
The aftershocks also shook President Hu Jintao yesterday as he praised rescue workers during a visit to Wenchuan, the epicenter of the quake.
The shaking prompted him to pause and glance over a hill before he continued with his speech to rescuers there.
Sichuan Vice-Governor Li Chengyun said about 10,600 people remain buried under rubble. About 2.6 million tents are needed to shelter 4.8 million displaced residents.
Survivors were found yesterday, five days after the disaster, as rescuers worked through the day - using saws, drills and their hands.
 A boy makes a victory sign at Jiuzhou Stadium, one of the shelters in Mianyang. [China Daily] |
Russian rescuers found a survivor in Dujiangyan last night, the first by a foreign rescue team, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
No details about the survivor were available.
Other cases of miraculous survival include:
A 31-year-old woman named Bian Gangfen was rescued at 6:18 pm yesterday in Yinghua township, Shifang, after spending about 124 hours under the rubble of a chemical factory.
A young man was rescued at 6:15 pm after being buried in ruins in Yingxiu, a township in the epicenter Wenchuan county.
Zhou Zhi, 33, was rescued around 6 pm in Shifang City. He was a miner at Jinhe Mine in Hongbai township.
As the weather gets warmer, survivors are increasingly worried about hygiene but no case of epidemics has been reported.
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