Miracle rescues in China quake as death toll tops 40,000

The woman survived for nearly 200 hours by drinking the rainwater, while the man, Ma Yuanjiang, was fed through a straw that rescuers inserted through the debris, state media said.

With flags at half-mast on the second day of official mourning, tens of thousands of jittery residents in the major city of Chengdu ran for cover after authorities warned that more strong aftershocks could shake southwestern China.

Beijing also put out another urgent appeal for tents as foreign medical teams began to arrive on the scene to help care for the nearly 250,000 people injured in last Monday's earthquake, which measured 8.0 on the Richter scale.

Despite the overwhelming odds against finding any more survivors under the rubble, rescue workers Tuesday saved Ma Yuanjiang after a 30-hour dig that included chiseling through 10 slabs of cement, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.

The team fed the 31-year-old sugary water through a straw as they broke through the rubble of a power plant where he was an executive, Xinhua said.

Ma was surprisingly able to speak, eat and drink small amounts as he was rushed to hospital but his left forearm had to be amputated, it said.

Xinhua, quoting Hong Kong-based Phoenix television, said that a woman was pulled out of the rubble after 190 hours during which she drank rainwater.

Another man, Peng Guohua, was saved Monday in a lime mine after he drank his own urine to survive, according to state press.

Such improbable survival stories have inspired many Chinese, who on Monday came to an unprecedented three-minute standstill to honor the victims of the earthquake.

But the number of rescues has tapered off, and the frantic pace of searching for survivors in the endless rubble has slowed, as the reality sets in that finding any more people alive after so long is almost impossible.

The government said on Tuesday that the death toll from the earthquake had risen to 40,075. A cabinet spokesman said hours earlier the number of dead and missing was nearly 66,000.

Across southwestern China, tens of thousands of residents ran for safety early Tuesday over fears of another earthquake, carrying bedding, chairs, clothes and other possessions.

"Anyone who says he is not afraid is just kidding," said Zhu Yuejin, a 23-year-old saleswoman who spent the night in a car.

A warning on the Sichuan government website, quoting seismological authorities, said that a strong aftershock of 6.0 to 7.0 magnitudes would strike the same area ravaged by last week’s massive tremor.

But Du Jianguo, a Beijing-based researcher with China’s Institute of Earthquake Science, said it was impossible to predict aftershocks so accurately. "I don’t know who made such a forecast, but personally I don’t believe it," he told AFP.

Fuelling fears among the superstitious, residents of the southern city of Zunyi reported a massive migration of frogs and toads, which also covered Sichuan town’s days before the May 12 earthquake, according to state media.

China has been hit by more than 150 aftershocks measuring 4.0 or higher on the Richter scale since the initial tremor, including one overnight that measured 5.0.

That tremor appeared to cause further damage in the quake zone, which spans across 100,000 square kilometers (40,000 square miles) of mountainous Sichuan, an area roughly three times the size of Belgium.

In Beichuan County, one of the worst-hit areas, cranes that were being used for rescue work the previous day were tipped on their side, according to an AFP reporter there.

The warning of the powerful aftershock set off nerves on Chinas stock markets, contributing to a nearly 4.5 percent drop in share prices, dealers said.

China has seen a wave of sympathy over the earthquake, but international criticism started to build over China’s decision to let in foreign rescuers only three days after the earthquake.

"There was a delay in the decision-making. It would have been better if the decision was quicker," Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said in Tokyo.

A Japanese team, the first official foreign team on the scene, was heading home without finding any survivors, although another Japanese unit left Japan Tuesday to provide medical relief.

Huang Qiong, a Chinese surgeon who has completed 100 operations since the earthquake, told the state-run China Daily that she had to stop herself crying as she worked. "But when I go back home and lie down on my bed, I just cannot help shedding tears," she said.