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17th May, 2008
BEICHUAN: A strong aftershock sparked landslides Friday near the epicenter of this week’s powerful earthquake, burying vehicles and again cutting off ravaged areas of central China.
Across the disaster area, survivors were still being found alive after being buried in rubble for four days, and the first foreign rescue workers were allowed to the scene. Public anger erupted over the hundreds of children crushed to death in schools that collapsed in Monday’s magnitude 7.9 temblor.
An aftershock rattled parts of central Sichuan province Friday afternoon, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing its reporters at the scene. A number of vehicles were buried on a road leading to the epicenter, and casualties were unknown.
The US Geological Survey said the latest tremor measured magnitude 5.5 and was centered 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) below the surface, a relatively shallow quake, like the initial disaster.
Education and housing officials took the rare move of fielding questions online from angry Chinese citizens over the many children among the official death toll, which the government said Friday had risen to about 21,500 with 14,000 more people still buried.
The government said it would investigate why so many school buildings collapsed in the quake—destroying about 6,900 classrooms, not including the hardest-hit counties—and severely punish anyone responsible for shoddy construction.
More than 4 million apartments and homes had been damaged or destroyed in Sichuan province, according to Housing Minister Jiang Weixin, and officials have said they expect the earthquake will eventually claim more than 50,000 lives.
A day past what experts call the critical three-day window for finding buried survivors alive, rescuers pulled a nurse to safety who had been trapped for 96 hours in the debris of a clinic in Beichuan county, one of 17 people saved, Xinhua reported.
As rescuers moved into the epicenter, police restricted the last couple kilometers (miles) of road into Beichuan to emergency vehicles. Military trucks and cranes edged around huge fallen boulders.
Dozens of people trudged up the winding mountain road, carrying backpacks and bags with food and medical supplies, on a quest for missing relatives.
President Hu Jintao made his first trip to the disaster zone, rallying troops among the massive relief operation of some 130,000 soldiers and police. – AP
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