China quake toll close to 15,000

Pregnant mother Zhang Xiaoyan was China quake toll close to 15,000
Zhang Xiaoyan pulled alive from rubble in Dujiangyan 14 May
Pregnant mother Zhang Xiaoyan was pulled alive from the rubble

Nearly 15,000 people died in the devastating earthquake that hit China's Sichuan province, the official Xinhua news agency has reported.

More than 25,000 are still trapped in the rubble two days after the 7.9 quake struck, causing landslides and razing homes, schools and whole villages.

China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao was flying to the epicentre to see relief work, having met survivors elsewhere.

Troops have been mobilised and aid has been dropped to cut-off areas.

Sichuan's Vice-Governor Li Chengyun said incomplete figures suggested 14,463 people were dead, another 14,051 were missing, 25,788 were buried in the debris and 64,746 had been injured, Xinhua reports.

Officials reached the town of Yingxiu, in Wenchuan County, to find the devastation was worse than expected - out of the town's population of 10,000, only 2,300 have been found alive.

See a map of the earthquake area

The head of a police unit sent into the disaster zone said the losses had been severe.

"Some towns basically have no houses left," Wang Yi, told Sichuan Online news site. "They have all been razed to the ground."

Poor weather has hampered aid efforts, and rescuers have been forced to trek to areas cut off by the quake damage and search through the rubble with their bare hands.

Slow progress


RECENT CHINA QUAKES
March, 2008: 7.2 quake in Xinjiang - damage limited
February 2003: 6.8 quake in Xinjiang - at least 94 dead, 200 hurt
January 1998: 6.2 quake in rural Hebei - at least 47 dead, 2,000 hurt
April 1997: 6.6 quake hits Xinjiang - 9 dead, 60 hurt
January 1997: 6.4 quake in Xinjiang - 50 dead, 40 hurt

How earthquakes happen
History of deadly earthquakes

In Juyuan township, near Dujiangyan, more than 1,000 people are thought to be trapped in a collapsed school building. More than 50 bodies have been pulled out - but only one girl is reported to have been rescued alive so far.

Weeping parents wait for news as the victims are laid out in the playground.

The BBC's Dan Griffiths, in Juyuan, says a whole generation of the town's children may be lost.

At another school, in Qingchuan County, at least 178 children were confirmed dead, killed as they were having a midday sleep.

Among the rescue successes was 34-year-old Zhang Xiaoyan, who is eight months pregnant. She was pulled alive from an apartment that partially collapsed in Dujiangyan.

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Children rescued from the rubble in Dujiangyan

"It's a miracle brought about by us all working together," Sun Guoli, Chengdu's fire chief told the Associated Press. "It's a miracle of life, using one's life to save a life."

Officials for the Ministry of Transport and Ministry of Railways told reporters that road conditions were impeding relief work across the province.

"We may have 10 machines but given the road condition only one excavator can used at one time, and we can only push forward one metre by one metre," one said.

The earthquake on Monday was the worst to strike China since more than 240,000 people were killed in Tangshan in 1976.

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