(China Daily/Xinhua/Agencies)
Updated: 2008-05-18 09:09

The death toll from the quake rose to 28,881 nationwide as of yesterday, and 198,347 people were injured, the Information Office of the State Council said yesterday.

A woman phones her relatives to let them know she's safe as soon as telephone services were restored in Pingwu county, Sichuan province, yesterday. [China Daily]

Officials had earlier said that the death toll could be as high as 50,000.

Till yesterday, 145 aftershocks with a magnitude of 4 or higher had been recorded since Monday, Guo Weimin, an official of the office, told a press conference.

The aftershocks also shook President Hu Jintao yesterday as he praised rescue workers during a visit to Wenchuan, the epicenter of the quake.

The shaking prompted him to pause and glance over a hill before he continued with his speech to rescuers there.

Sichuan Vice-Governor Li Chengyun said about 10,600 people remain buried under rubble. About 2.6 million tents are needed to shelter 4.8 million displaced residents.

Survivors were found yesterday, five days after the disaster, as rescuers worked through the day - using saws, drills and their hands.

A boy makes a victory sign at Jiuzhou Stadium, one of the shelters in Mianyang. [China Daily]

Russian rescuers found a survivor in Dujiangyan last night, the first by a foreign rescue team, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

No details about the survivor were available.

Other cases of miraculous survival include:

A 31-year-old woman named Bian Gangfen was rescued at 6:18 pm yesterday in Yinghua township, Shifang, after spending about 124 hours under the rubble of a chemical factory.

A young man was rescued at 6:15 pm after being buried in ruins in Yingxiu, a township in the epicenter Wenchuan county.

Zhou Zhi, 33, was rescued around 6 pm in Shifang City. He was a miner at Jinhe Mine in Hongbai township.

As the weather gets warmer, survivors are increasingly worried about hygiene but no case of epidemics has been reported.

Li told a news briefing yesterday that officials had been continuously monitoring the environment in the quake zone and found 52 sources of drinking water in 11 areas met potability standards.

The State Council ordered the shipment of more fast food and bottled water as well as grain and cooking oil to the quake-hit areas.

Meanwhile, international emergency aid continued to flow into the quake zone.

The third batch of relief materials, including tents and food, arrived in Chengdu from Russia yesterday afternoon.

More urgent relief goods are delivered to Shifang in Sichuan, yesterday. Liu Haifeng

Russia had flown in 60 tons of humanitarian aid in two flights on Wednesday and Thursday, including tents and blankets.

Two Pakistani military aircraft arrived in Chengdu on Friday evening, carrying tents, blankets, bottled water and medicines.

A plane load of humanitarian aid from the Singaporean government arrived in Chengdu last night, including disinfectant tablets for drinking water, tents, stretchers, cutters, food and drinks.

The United States has provided more than $23 million in aid, Xinhua reported.

The self-sacrifice and generosity of ordinary people caught up in the disaster was a source of comfort in the stricken region.

On the road leading out of Wenchuan, men whose motorbikes were trapped temporarily between landslides or broken bridges offered the weak and injured rides along stretches of road that were still passable.

Those heading out offered spare food to people trekking into the area to look for their family members, and farmers and soldiers boiled water for travelers.

"Our house was up that hill but it collapsed in the quake, so this is just something I thought could help the other victims," said a woman stoking a wood fire under a huge pot of water, who like many helping out refused to give her name.

 

More urgent relief goods are delivered to Shifang in Sichuan, yesterday. [China Daily]