Rain, landslides hamper rescue as China quake toll nears 400

Rain and landslides blocking key roads hampered efforts on Monday (04/08/2014) to rescue tens of thousands of people left homeless by an earthquake that killed at least 398 in south-western China.

Many among the estimated 1 million people affected by Sunday's 6.5-magnitude quake in Yunnan province felt hundreds of aftershocks, while landslides had blocked rivers in some areas, bringing the threat of floods.

"The blocked roads and the continuous downpour have made some disaster areas inaccessible for the relief vehicles," said Liu Jianhua, the ruling Communist Party's secretary in Zhaotong city, which administers the worst-hit county of Ludian.

The official Xinhua news agency quoted Liu as saying there was a "severe shortage" of professional rescue teams and equipment, and they were finding it difficult to clear blocked roads.

Three people were reported missing and about 1,800 were injured. About 25,500 homes collapsed and 190,000 were damaged, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said.

Premier Li Keqiang and a team of senior officials arrived in Zhaotong on Monday to oversee relief work, the government said.

"We have to grab every opportunity of rescue to reduce the casualties," Li was quoted as saying.

About 11,000 police and firefighters were joined by more than 7,000 soldiers and thousands of civilian volunteers, reports said.

The government said it allocated 600 million yuan (97.3 million dollars) to fund relief operations.

Six helicopters were surveying the damage and airlifting some of the most severely injured from Longtoushan town, near the epicentre of the quake that struck at about 4:30 pm (0830 GMT) Sunday.

At least 12,000 homes collapsed and 30,000 were damaged in the town and surrounding villages, with a total population of 430,000.

Some 230,000 were evacuated after their homes were damaged of left vulnerable to floods and landslides.

Power lines were severed and telecommunications services were cut off in many areas, state media said.

Photographs showed rows of old houses, mostly built of timber and adobe bricks, reduced to piles of rubble.

Other state media pictures showed rescuers carrying stretchers along dirt roads, with no vehicles in sight.

Farmer Luo Faming and his wife were working outside when their house collapsed on top of their four children, who were watching television.

Aided by neighbours, the couple dug the injured children out of the rubble, finding them protected by a kitchen cabinet that held up part of a wall, Luo told a Yunnan-based website.

The couple took the four children, including one who was seriously injured, from Longtoushan county to Ludian town for treatment, but they had to clamber across a landslide that had blocked the road.

The 10-kilometre journey to Ludian took Luo about two hours, despite using a neighbour's motorcycle after crossing the landslide.

Yan Zhengquan, an official in Ludian, told the Beijing Times that up to 600 buildings had collapsed along the 7.5-kilometre valley from Shaba village to Longtoushan county, including a middle school, a health centre and a police station.

Some seriously injured people who were taken to makeshift hospitals and faced long waits to be transferred for emergency treatment, other reports said.

"The critically injured patients keep coming, but we are unable to carry out operations for many of them," Xinhua quoted a doctor as saying at a medical aid centre set up in tents.

"It is impossible to deal with severe injuries such as intracranial hemorrhage in such conditions," the doctor said.

The rescue teams had managed to move some of the 57,200 people still awaiting evacuation on Monday.

More than 1,500 people were evacuated from Huodehong township because they faced the risk of a flood from a lake formed by a landslide above their homes.

Thousands of tents, beds and blankets were sent to residents whose homes had collapsed, reports said.

Sunday's earthquake was so devastating because it was relatively shallow, at just 12 kilometres below the surface, and hit a densely populated area where people live in low-resistance adobe or stone houses, seismologist Chen Huizhong told the Beijing News. - Sapa-dpa