More worries in China following major aftershock

Hundreds of aftershocks have rattled Sichuan province following last Monday's devastating 7.9 magnitude quake, and officials are concerned the tremors could bring down more unstable buildings and rupture already leaky dams.Â

Six days after the main quake hit, the overall death toll stands at nearly 32,500, state news agency Xinhua reported, with a further 220,000 injured.

Early on Sunday, a 6.1 magnitude tremor caused thousands to flee swaying buildings in the provincial capital, Chengdu, some 200 km (125 miles) south of the new tremor's epicenter.

The official Xinhua news agency said there had been no reports of casualties, but more roads been seriously damaged.

But concerns over the safety of nuclear facilities, including China's chief nuclear weapons research lab, close to the affected zone were allayed. Xinhua reported that they were "all in a safe and controllable state".

In Beichuan, hard hit by the quake and which many people fled on Saturday following warnings a dam may collapse, worried relatives quarreled with police who tried to prevent them entering the area, citing safety reasons.

"I've travelled all this way, and I don't know where my father is," said Chen Shiquan, who had come back from the neighboring province of Qinghai where he works to look for this father, Chen Xiaoqu. "To let me get this far and then not let me in is too cruel," he added.

Thousands of people have fled the Beichuan area amid fears a lake could burst its banks, hampering rescue efforts after the deadliest earthquake in more than three decades.

At least three barrier lakes, formed after rocks blocked a river, had burst their banks but caused no casualties, Xinhua said. "There has been no bursting of reservoirs in the quake-hit areas," the report added.

Fu Xingyue, looking for his daughter who was supposed to turn 6 the day after the quake happened, brushed off safety concerns.

"I don't think the dam is a big threat, and anyway, there's nothing I can do. I have to keep searching," said Fu, who works as a truck driver and has spent days desperately searching though rubble and shouting out his daughter's name.

MORE FOUND ALIVE
Rescue work has been complicated by bad weather, treacherous terrain and hundreds of aftershocks. But victims are still being pulled alive from the rubble.

In Yingxiu, close to the epicentre of Monday's 7.9 magnitude quake, at least 56 people were rescued over the past 24 hours, the official Xinhua news agency said on Sunday.

On Sunday morning, rescuers pulled a man out of a collapsed hospital in Beichuan, but had to amputate his legs first, Xinhua said. "The survivor, in sober mind, was carefully carried out by firefighters amid strong applause," it added.  Â

An estimated 10,000 people or so are still trapped under the rubble, but most are believed dead.

Dozens of schools collapsed in the area, crushing to death thousands of children taking classes at the time. Officials pulled out more bodies from the wreckage of the local primary school in Beichuan on Sunday. Forty-one corpses were laid out in front of the school.

A strong smell of ammonia and incense hung over the town, which was littered with boulders the size of four-wheel drive from a nearby mountain slope. All of the buildings in the town were either destroyed or appeared beyond repair.

FOREIGN HELP
Offers of help have flooded in and rescue teams with sniffer dogs and specialized equipment have arrived from Japan, Russia, Taiwan, South Korea, the United States and Singapore. Donations from home and abroad have topped 6 billion yuan ($858 million).

Yet Fujiya Koji, head of the Japanese rescue team in Sichuan, told Reuters that chances of finding more survivors were low. "We haven't been able to find any survivors yet. Generally by this stage the likelihood of survival is low. They say they have been finding some in Beichuan and we'll certainly keep trying," he added.

Statistics from past earthquakes show survivors have been found up to nearly a fortnight after being trapped.

China has said it expects the final death toll from the earthquake to exceed 50,000. About 4.8 million people have lost their homes and the days are numbered in which survivors can be found.

Premier Wen said the quake was "the biggest and most destructive" since before the Communist revolution of 1949 and the quick response had helped reduce casualties.

Photo: Reuters