Published: May 20, 2008 07:30 am         

Sichuan: 40,000 dead in hard-hit province alone

CHENGDU, China (AP) — China said it was struggling to find shelter for many of the 5 million people whose homes were destroyed in last week’s earthquake, while the region remained jittery Tuesday over warnings of aftershocks.

Meanwhile, rescuers saved a 31-year-old man from the rubble of a power plant flattened by last week’s earthquake, the second case of someone being found alive a week after the temblor struck Sichuan province.

Ma Yuanjiang was pulled from the Yingxiu Bay Hydropower Plant, where he worked as a director, after a 30-hour rescue effort, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Ma was able to speak after the rescue and began to eat small amounts of food, his colleague Wu Geng told Xinhua, but his exact condition was unknown.

A miner, Peng Guohua, was in stable condition Tuesday after being trapped for 170 hours before his rescue Monday, Xinhua said.

The confirmed death toll in Sichuan province alone rose to 39,577, Vice Governor Li Chengyun told a news conference.

The government had previously said the confirmed toll overall was 34,074, with most of those deaths in Sichuan, the area hit hardest by the quake.

Another 32,361 people remained missing across the quake zone, said the State Council, China’s Cabinet.

In the rescue effort so far, 6,375 survivors were dug out from quake debris, among some 360,159 people relocated to safer areas, the council said.

The government was setting up temporary housing for quake victims unable to find shelter with relatives, but there was a “desperate need for tents” to accommodate them, said Jiang Li, vice minister of civil affairs.

She told reporters in Beijing that nearly 280,000 tents had been shipped to the area and 700,000 more ordered, with factories working triple shifts to meet demand.

Another 480,000 quilts and 1.7 million jackets were also sent to quake survivors, Jiang said.

Five million people lost their homes in the quake, she said.

“Despite generous donations, the disaster is so great that victims still face a challenge in finding living accommodations,” Jiang said.

China has said it would accept foreign medical teams, as the relief efforts shifted from searching for survivors to caring for the homeless. A growing number of countries responded to the call, dispatching doctors to the quake area Tuesday.

A Russian medical team with a mobile hospital arrived Tuesday in the Sichuan provincial capital Chengdu, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said. A 37-member medical team sent by the Taiwan Red Cross organization also arrived in the disaster zone.

Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said a 23-member medical team will leave Tuesday for China. Crews of doctors were also en route from Germany and Italy, Qin said.

“China is willing to work closely” with outside doctors, Qin told a news conference.

Other countries and groups have also offered to send medical teams, but China has not given permission to allow all of them to help.

“But given the situation, and difficulties in the area, including transportation and telecommunications, it is not possible for us to accept all of the rescue and medical teams to engage in relief work,” Qin said.

Rescue workers resumed the search for bodies on the second day of a three-day national mourning period declared by the Chinese government, an unprecedented gesture to honor the dead whose numbers were expected to exceed 50,000.

Because of plans to bury bodies quickly, the government said DNA samples will be taken from corpses to help with later identification, Xinhua said. Identified bodies will be cremated, although burial will be allowed where no cremation is possible.

Thirty-two radioactive sources were also buried under rubble, Xinhua reported, citing Minister of Environmental Protection Zhou Shengxian.

Only two have not been recovered, although authorities have located them and restricted access to nearby areas, Zhou was cited as saying. They were expected to be transported to safety soon. The rest have been disposed of.

An official with the Nuclear Safety Department of the Environmental Protection Ministry said there are no nuclear power plants in Sichuan. The official only gave his surname, Li, as is common among Chinese bureaucrats.

According to a French nuclear watchdog, Sichuan has several key nuclear sites, including a research reactor, two nuclear fuel production sites and two atomic weapons sites. All were 40 to 90 miles from the epicenter.

During the three-day mourning period, flags were flying at half-staff and entertainment events have been canceled. The Olympic torch relay has also been suspended.

Thousands of quake survivors awoke Tuesday after spending a night sleeping in cars and in the open, frightened by government warnings of a potential strong aftershock. The alarm compounded uneasiness in the region, which has been rumbled by dozens of aftershocks since the May 12 quake.

A panda from the Wolong Nature Preserve that disappeared during the quake returned safely, but two of the endangered animals were still missing, Xinhua reported. The others were “very likely to be alive,” forestry official Xiong Beirong told the agency, because they were adults.

Oil and gas operations in the region devastated by last week’s earthquake in central China are virtually back to normal, state-owned oil and gas giant CNPC said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, China’s banking regulators ordered banks to ensure adequate loans and other support for companies and individuals in the area.

The State Council, China’s cabinet, said donations for disaster relief had reached $1.5 billion.