Time Running Out For China Quake Victims

Rescue Enters "Most Crucial" Phase; Rare Rescues Keep Hope Alive, Death Toll Now At 21,000

(CBS/AP)  Chinese President Hu Jintao said rescue efforts following this week's powerful earthquake entered their "most crucial" phase Friday, as the country braced for a death toll expected to rise above 50,000.

Hu flew to central China to view the devastation and the massive relief operation that included more than 130,000 troops. Four days after the quake hit, soldiers and police finally reached all of the hardest-hit isolated mountain counties and townships at the epicenter, state media said.

A harsh setback came Friday as state media reported strong aftershocks had caused landslides, blocking some of the few usable roads in Sichuan province and burying a number of emergency and recovery vehicles in the process.

And as officials raised the official death toll to about 21,500 in Sichuan, public criticism grew over the many children killed while at school during the magnitude 7.9 quake.

Education and housing officials took the rare move of taking questions online from angry citizens. The government said it would investigate why so many school buildings collapsed - about 6,900 classrooms were destroyed, not including the hardest-hit counties - and severely punish anyone responsible for shoddy construction in the buildings.

Sichuan Vice Governor Li Chengyun announced the new death toll number at a news conference Friday in the provincial capital Chengdu. It was raised by about 3,000 from a day earlier.

A day past what experts call the critical three-day window for finding buried survivors alive, stories of rare survivors being discovered did deep hope alive for rescue workers.

A Chinese state news agency said Friday rescuers had pulled a nurse to safety after being trapped for 96 hours in the debris of a clinic. Xinhua News Agency said two other people were pulled out of a collapsed building in Beichuan in northern Sichuan province an hour earlier.

The area was one of the last that rescuers reached after Monday's earthquake.

Rrescuers pulled a student trapped for 80 hours from a school in the Beichuan area. They said they could hear more weak cries for help.

The Earthquake and Disaster Relief Headquarters of the State Council, the country's Cabinet, has said fatalities could rise above 50,000. Tens of thousands could still be buried in collapsed buildings in Sichuan province, where the quake was centered, the vice governor told reporters.

"The challenge is still severe, the task is still arduous and the time is pressing," the official Xinhua News Agency quoted Hu as saying. "Quake relief work has entered into the most crucial phase. We must make every effort, race against time and overcome all difficulties to achieve the final victory of the relief efforts."

In Mianzhu, close to where Hu arrived, seven fallen schools buried 1,700 people, Xinhua said, with about 1,300 bodies recovered so far.

Weak signs of life were detected in five places amid the rubble of Dongqi Middle School in Mianzhu, where about 100 students were missing, Xinhua reported.

In the same area, 700 students were thought to have been buried in a school in Hanwang town. Further north in Beichuan, 360 students were rescued from the ruins of a school, but another 700 were still buried.

Police restricted the last couple miles of road into Beichuan to emergency vehicles. Military trucks and cranes edged around huge fallen boulders.

CBS News reporter Celia Hatton said thousands of people were trying to make their way back into the devastated rural areas from Sichuan's capital city Chengdu, either to search for loved ones, or just to try and help the rescue effort.

The flow of private vehicles was worrying authorities, who set up checkpoints like the one on the way into Beichuan to prevent traffic from impeding the official rescue effort.

Dozens of people trudged up the winding mountain road, carrying backpacks and bags with food and medical supplies, on a quest for missing relatives.

Liu Jingyong, a 43-year-old migrant worker searching for his cousin, traveled two days by bus and now foot just to get near his relative's home.

"I have not had any information from him," Liu said. "This is so hard on me."

China's Ministry of Land and Resources warned that heavy rains forecast for the next few days would likely set off new landslides.

The ministry said on its Web site that local authorities "must immediately mark off danger zones" to ensure rescue workers' safety. Landslides already have blocked not only roads but also rivers, which have formed new lakes.

The National Development and Reform Commission made an emergency allotment of 53 million yuan ($7.6 million) to repair reservoirs in the region, the agency said on its Web site.

At least one dam was reported to have cracked during the quake, raising fears for communities downriver. But there was no repair work or extra security seen Thursday at the Zipingpu dam, indicating the threat likely had passed.

The government said it had allocated a total 5.4 billion yuan ($772 million) for earthquake relief, according to the central bank's Web site, up sharply from 1.11 billion yuan ($159 million) two days ago.

Given the widespread destruction, AIR Worldwide - a catastrophe risk modeling firm - estimated losses to both insured and uninsured property would likely exceed $20 billion.

The first international relief workers started working in the disaster zone, with a Japanese rescue crew arriving early Friday. China initially was reluctant to accept foreign offers of help, but the Foreign Ministry said early Friday that specialist teams from Russia, South Korea and Singapore were also welcome.

Singapore's Foreign Ministry said a 55-member team would arrive in Sichuan later Friday.

Experts said the time for rescues was growing short.

"Anyone buried in an earthquake can survive without water and food for three days," said Gu Linsheng, a researcher with Tsinghua University's Emergency Management Research Center. "After that, it's usually a miracle for anyone to survive."

Nearly 70,000 injured people were being treated at hospitals in Sichuan, Dr. Shen Ji, director general of the provincial health department, told reporters in Chengdu, adding that no quake-related epidemics have broken out yet.

The Health Ministry posted a notice on its Web site for disease prevention, saying saving lives was the top priority for now, then "public sanitation and epidemic control and prevention should be thoroughly carried out." Bodies should be cleaned and buried as soon as possible, the ministry advised.

[nothappyatall]

we love our country, maybe you will know why when you see our president cried sadly when he visied the people in quake province...

Posted by baby_lynn"

Yeah, crying about the loss of money etc those people generated that now will cost the state money to dispose of.
China, the SAME country who ships us poisoned pet food, the SAME country who ships us lead coated kids toys, the SAME country who ships goods that fall apart.

[baby_lynn]

We are doing our best to help our family members in quake. We are face everything together as we all chinese people are living in one big family.Now everybody(the government,banks,singers,companies,teachers,students,farmers,cleaners,etc)is trying his best to help(collect money and provide blood), you can see there are many volunteers here are collect money for the quake province.
I dont care about what western people or some people from other countries talking about my country anymore. i dont know what is human rights, what i know is people will fight against if we are oppressed or imprisoned, but we are not. And i dont need to others to tell me what human rights, i dont know how to say,erm you will know the tibet "indepence"is so fake when you come to visit the tibet people in my country. Come to my country to ask tibet people and you will get answer. and you are welcomed.

i really dont know how many misunderstanding or insults i can take from people in other countries.i am not asking you to support us, i just ask you to know the fact before you decide to attack me, coz you might change your mind.Anyway We are not afraid of anything.

We are not expect people in other countries '' understanding anymore. we love our country, maybe you will know why when you see our president cried sadly when he visied the people in quake province...

[blackyowe]

It''s so sad. I really feel for these people. It''s good to see the real China and the faces of regular people. It''s pretty hard to understand what China is sometimes with all the secrets. They really did the right thing letting the world see the human face of China.

[nothappyatall]

That should read "in the 1790 census" not 1970- typo

[nothappyatall]

I%u2019m appalled at the administration%u2019s lack of response to the global warming earthquakes,
Posted by AL2008

Thats the first time Ive ever heard of global warming causing QUAKES! you are full of it, quakes happen all the time- especially on FAULT ZONES! When you know the land is on a fault zone, near a volcano, river, beach, flood zone etc- DONT BUILD THERE!!

"We the people call upon our leaders to implement a comprehensive antiglobal warming strategy at once and work in

Posted by AL2008 "

NO! we need a global strategy to reduce the BIRTH RATE and let the human population go back to the numbers it was 200 years ago, reducing, recycling, changing bulbs etc etc ad nausia is NOT going to do a dam thing to reverse climate change- not as long as we keep multiplying exponentially as we have been!
The USA has 305 million, had 150 million in 1950, 100 million in 1900 and in the 1970 census 3,893,874 people in the US were counted. Today over 9 MILLION people reside in NY City alone- over twice as many who lived in the entire US in 1790.

NOW you see where the problem LAY? its not that you use 100 watt bulbs instead of 40 or that your drive 4 miles too many this week, or didn''t recycle your 2 gram plastic grocery bag, it''s TOO MANY PEOPLE IN A FINITE ENVIRONMENT.

[nothappyatall]

"who lost both his arms after his school collapsed"

Thanks to the god who caused the ground to move and him to lose his arms, way to go!

"My prayers go to every single person effected my this quake. god Bless.

Posted by renae2626

First of all, they are COMMUNIST and don''t believe in god either, so according to your book of death they are all going to hel1 anyway, so save the prayers it wont do any good. If you want to do something then pray it doesnt happen AGAIN, but since it will, it shows prayers dont work anyway, so dont bother

[lthuij]

bondshomo,

For God''s sake don''t behave like a snake. You are a snake or a human being?

[seafang]

Well AL2008, you seem to pop up all over the place.

Can''t you come up with something more constructive than that blather you are copying all over the internet.

[renae2626]

My prayers go to every single person effected my this quake. I feel very deeply for all of them and hope the best to come in the future,and peace to come over their lives. God Bless.

[Syndicate]

I''m gald China has aknowledge the likley hood of Shoddy construction as a contributing factor. People need to understand this is a big step forwrd for the chinese government. I hope they will give great consideration to a free press. A free press with millions of reporters is a *** to control but it is very effective at finding problems and bringing them to light. I believe a chineese free press would be a boom to china. It would help improve the quality of life of the chinese. It would help Bring in foriegn investment due to the free flow of information. It would improve the quality of chinese goods. And it would help introduce China and its culture to the world much the same way the American free press and freedom of speech has spread American culture to every cornor of the globe.

[al2008-2009]

I%u2019m appalled at the administration%u2019s lack of response to the global warming earthquakes, hurricanes, and cyclones as well. We have no comprehensive strategy in place whatsoever, let alone a detailed plan of action to mitigate the effects of these quakes and cyclones, and mother earth continues to suffer while the administration refuses to go forward and do what%u2019s right for mother earth.
.
How long must we sit idly by while our mother continues to suffer from the warming taking place at a feverish pace? How long must our mother suffer before we have proper c02 taxes put into place? How long must the destruction of mother earth take place before we finally put responsible regulations into effect? How long must we wait until we beef up our corn ethanol production? At least Obama wants to cut c02 pollution by 80%; he is definitely our best hope.
.
We the people call upon our leaders to implement a comprehensive antiglobal warming strategy at once and work in coordination with state and federal officials; these quakes, cyclones and disasters continue to worsen and the quicker we stop the warming the sooner we will see these quakes and storms cease. We need action now.

[bruceliuking]

I''ve never been so proud of being a Chinese before, we are great poeple, trust me, we are able to conquer all disasters.

[iamauto]

God bless China!