China races to bury quake dead, manage survivors

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Fri, May 16 08:14 AM

By John Ruwitch

MIANZHU, China (Reuters) - China struggled on Friday to bury the dead and offer relief to those left injured, homeless and without food and water by the earthquake that may have killed more than 50,000 people.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called on officials to ensure social stability as frustration and exhaustion grew among survivors, many who lost everything and are living in makeshift tents or in the open air.

In Mianzhu, in the southwestern province of Sichuan, the area worst hit by Monday's 7.9 magnitude quake, Lin Changfu was staffing a tent collecting relief supplies.

"What we need most urgently is water, food and tents. We lack tents," he said.

From the heart of the disaster zone, Wen urged rescuers on, but hopes were fading for those still trapped under rubble.

"Saving lives is still our top priority as long as hope of survival still exists," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Wen as saying.

But some expressed frustration at the resources continuing to be devoted to finding survivors among the more than 25,000 who remain buried. Officials said another 20,000 have died in the quake.

"The focus is on saving lives, and they say food and a place to live are small issues as long as you're alive," said Fan Xiaohua, who was organising volunteers at a relief coordination centre in Mianzhu.

"In fact, they are very big issues right now," she said.

President Hu Jintao headed to Sichuan on Friday to meet victims and inspect the rescue and relief effort, Xinhua said. It will be his first trip to the region since the disaster struck.

In Sichuan's Yingxiu, where bodies were lined up along the river bank, a Communist Party official warned that epidemics could break out if bodies were not soon buried or cremated.

"We are in urgent need of body bags," the official, Bai Licheng, told Xinhua.

"Air-dropped food and drinking water are limited and far from meeting the demand," he added.

The Ministry of Health issued a notice ordering bodies to be cleaned where they were found and buried as soon as possible, far from water sources and downwind from populated areas.

More than 3,000 soldiers were searching for survivors in Yingxiu, a township of about 6,600 people.

Bai said bodies were still trapped in the debris and blocked roads meant that heavy lifting gear could not get through.

China has mobilised 130,000 army and paramilitary troops to the disaster area, but the quake buckled roads and triggered mountain landslides, meaning that relief supplies and rescuers have struggled to reach the worst-hit areas.

STRUGGLING TO COPE

In the town of Shifang, a small hospital struggled to cope with injured patients, who were being treated in any space available -- including a under a covered car park at the back of the building and under tents on the pavement.

Doctors and nurses rushed around, checking dressings, changing saline drips and administering to the wounded.

"We've seen nobody come here from the government," said one woman, tending to her injured son.

"They're trying to help, but they've been so busy," added a young man standing next to her. "In Mianzhu alone there's thousands dead," he said, referring to the nearby area.

Hundreds of damaged dams have also raised fears of collapse or flooding that could inundate towns and cities that are already struggling to recover from the quake.

China has asked the United States for satellite images to help locate victims and identify damaged infrastructure. In Sichuan and neighbouring Chongqing, reservoirs have been damaged, some dams have cracked or are leaking water, and officials have warned the full extent of the hazard was as yet unclear.

China was also accepting foreign help to bolster rescue efforts in the disaster, the deadliest since more than 240,000 people were killed in a 1976 earthquake in the northeastern Chinese city of Tangshan.

The first foreign rescue team, a group of about 60 people from Japan, reached Sichuan on Friday. China has accepted further offers of rescue teams from Russia, South Korea and Singapore, the Foreign Ministry said.

In the epicentre, Wenchuan, Chinese air forces succeeded for the first time on Thursday in dropping equipment, Xinhua said, citing military sources. Such airdrops had earlier been stymied by heavy rain and cloud cover.

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Shifang and Emma Graham-Harrison in Yingxiu)

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