China buries dead as aftershock hits

BEICHUAN, China (Reuters) - China struggled to bury itsdead and help tens of thousands of injured and homeless onFriday when a powerful aftershock brought new havoc four daysafter an earthquake thought to have killed more than 50,000.

President Hu Jintao flew to the battered province ofSichuan and Premier Wen Jiabao said the quake damage couldexceed the devastating 1976 tremor in the northeastern city ofTangshan that killed up to 300,000 people.

Wen called on officials to ensure social stability asfrustration and exhaustion grew among survivors, many of whomlost everything and were living in tents or in the open air.

China put the death toll at just over 22,000 on Friday buthas said it expects it to exceed 50,000. About 4.8 millionpeople have lost their homes.

Thousands of men, women and children were heading by footfor Mianyang, a city near the epicentre, saying they wereabandoning their ruined villages for good.

Anger has focused on the state of school buildings, many ofwhich crumpled in Monday's 7.9 magnitude quake, buryingthousands of children and prompting the Housing Ministry toorder an investigation.

"We cannot talk about giving up too easily," Wen said."Life should go on. I believe people in the quake area candefinitely build their hometown even better with their ownhands. That is also the biggest consolation for the dead."

The country is on precautionary alert against possibleradiation leaks, according to government website seen onFriday.

The disaster area is home to China's chief nuclear weaponsresearch lab in Mianyang, as well as several secretive atomicsites, but no nuclear power stations.

The Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics, also known asthe Southwest Institute, in Mianyang is the primary designlaboratory for Chinese nuclear weapons, according towww.globalsecurity.org.

A Western expert with knowledge of the Mianyang lab hadsaid it was unlikely it was at serious risk.

As officials assessed the risk, thousands of residents fromBeichuan, one of the areas worst hit by the quake, streameddown the road away from the town, carrying babies, bags andsuitcases as they left in search of shelter.

The town was a scene of devastation, with virtually everybuilding either demolished or damaged beyond habitation.

To the south, in the village of Houzhuang, residents saidthey were coping on their own, aid and troops yet to reachthem.

"We ate some corn, but now we are suffering from diarrhoeaafter drinking water from the ditch for two days," a residentsaid.

BUCKLED ROADS, LANDSLIDES

The aftershock, measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale, hitLixian, to the west of the epicentre in Wenchuan, cutting offroads and newly repaired telecommunications.

"A number of vehicles were buried in landslides. Thecasualties were not known," Xinhua news agency said.

China has mobilised 130,000 army and paramilitary troops tothe disaster area, but with buckled and blocked roads, suppliesand rescuers have struggled to reach the worst-hit areas.

China has been flooded with offers of help. The firstforeign rescue team, a group of about 60 people from Japan,reached Sichuan on Friday. China has also accepted offers ofrescue teams from Russia, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore.

At China's request, the World Food Programme said it wassending enough ready-to-eat meals for 118,000 people.

Neighbouring areas have also suffered, with more than50,000 made homeless in one county of Gansu province to thenorth.

A CRY FOR HELP

But there were still small victories.

A 50-year-old worker was rescued from a collapsedfertiliser plant after being trapped for about 100 hours, awitness said.

Rescuers saved a child from the debris of a school inBeichuan 80 hours after the quake struck. They said they couldhear weak calls for help from amid the rubble, Xinhua said.

Three people in Beichuan were rescued on Friday, two in theremains of an office building and one in a collapsed hospital.

Many raised questions about school construction.

In Dujiangyan, a school collapse buried 900 students. InWufu, nearly every building in the village withstood the quakebut for a primary school, whose collapse killed about 300.

"Our child wasn't killed by the earthquake. She and theothers were killed by a derelict building. The officials knewit was unsafe," said Bi Kaiwei, whose daughter, 13, was killed.

Rescuers found two girls, one in a coma and the other dead,holding hands in the ruins of their school, Xinhua said.

Housing Minister Jiang Weixin said the schools weren'tdesigned to withstand such a powerful earthquake, but addedcorruption was a possible cause.

"At this stage we cannot rule out the possibility thatthere has been shoddy work and inferior materials," Jiang tolda news conference in Beijing.

There were also concerns about epidemics if the dead werenot soon buried or cremated.

Hundreds of damaged dams have also raised fears of collapseor flooding that could inundate towns and cities that arealready struggling to recover from the quake.

China has asked the United States for satellite images tohelp locate victims and identify damaged infrastructure.

The Science and Technology minister also requested talkswith U.S. experts on preventing disease, said U.S. Secretary ofHealth and Human Services Michael Leavitt.

(Additional reporting by Emma Graham-Harrison in Yingxiu,Jason Li in Houzhuang, Lucy Hornby and Benjamin Kang Lim inBeijing and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by DavidFogarty)