More troops rushed to help China quake rescue
CHENGDU, China (Reuters) - Thousands of Chinese troops areset to join a frantic search for earthquake survivors onWednesday, with prospects looking increasingly grim forthousands of people buried under rubble and mud.
Some 20,000 troops already searching in the southwestprovince of Sichuan, where Monday's 7.9-magnitude earthquakecrumpled homes, schools and hospitals and cut off some of theworst-hit towns, will be doubled, the official Xinhua newsagency reported.
The national death toll from the quake has climbed past13,000 and is likely to rise steeply after media said 19,000people were buried in rubble in just one area of Sichuan.
A near overwrought Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was shown onstate television using a bullhorn to urge on rescuers.
"At present the number one thing is still saving people,"Wen told local officials, according to Xinhua. "All collapsedbuildings must be fully checked. If there is a glimmer of hope,then put everything into rescuing."
But the depth of destruction in the towns and worst-hitmountainous areas suggests that the influx of troops is likelyto find many more bodies than survivors among the toppledbuildings, which have become grim vigil sites for desperatefamilies.
In Beichuan County, at least 1,000 students and teacherswere buried under a seven-storey school building, and rows ofapartment blocks in the town collapsed. Locals told Xinhua thatup to 8,000 residents may have died.
"People escaped from the buildings but were only devouredby the landslides," one survivor, Lei Xiaoying, told Xinhua."There was no way to escape."
That scene is repeated in many other places where troopsare only now entering after battling rain and severed roads.
WIDESPREAD DEVASTATION
State media reported devastation in villages near theepicentre in Wenchuan, a remote county cut off by landslidesabout 100 km (60 miles) northwest of the Sichuan provincialcapital, Chengdu.
About 60,000 people were unaccounted for across Wenchuan.
In Mianzhu, rescuers said the death toll had risen to3,000. About 500 people were pulled out alive from crushedbuildings. An earlier report said 10,000 people there had beenburied under rubble.
A further 18,645 people were buried under debris inMianyang, a city that also covers much farmland, Xinhua said.
The quake was the worst to hit China since the 1976Tangshan tremor in northeastern China where up to 300,000 died.
Offers of aid have come from all over the world, threemonths before the Beijing Olympics. The disaster has for nowsidelined upbeat propaganda about the games as well asinternational tensions over recent unrest in Tibet.
Overnight, Chinese President Hu Jintao spoke about theearthquake, as well as Tibet and other subjects, with U.S.President George W. Bush.
Hu told Bush that Chinese people "deeply grieved" themassive loss of life in the earthquake, the Chinese ForeignMinistry said on its Web site (https://www.fmprc.gov.cn).
Analysts said they did not expect serious economic effectsfrom the disaster, but supply shortages could fuel inflation --already at a near 12-year high.
(Writing by Chris Buckley; Editing by David Fox)