Quake death toll rises to 1,144, survivors face dire conditions

AFP - The death toll from a strong quake that rocked a remote Tibetan region of China surged past the 1,000 mark on Friday, as tonnes of food, clothes and other vital supplies started pouring in.

Meanwhile preparations were under way for the cremation of hundreds of victims of the disaster as concern turned toward the risk of disease outbreaks in the quake zone, centred on the town of Jiegu in Qinghai province.

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An AFP journalist saw hundreds of bodies laid out on the floor of a warehouse-like structure at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery overlooking the town, with locals saying the dead were to be cremated from Saturday morning.

As of Friday evening the official number of dead had risen to 1,144, the state Xinhua news agency said, up from a toll of 791 earlier in the day. Yet it could rise further with more than 400 still missing.

The wail of sirens and stench of death filled the air as relief vehicles thundered through the hard-hit town in Yushu county.

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Thousands of survivors of Wednesday's 6.9-magnitude earthquake have waited desperately for large-scale shipments of food and other aid having spent two freezing and hungry nights out in the open after many buildings crumbled.

"I have lost everything," a distraught ethnic Tibetan woman who gave her name as Sonaman told AFP.

Wandering the streets with her four-year-old nephew tucked under her coat, Sonaman, 52, said through tears that her mother, father, and sister had died.

"My house has been destroyed. It's been flattened. My family lost 10 people. We have nothing. We have nothing to eat."

Premier Wen Jiabao wrapped up a two-day tour of the disaster area by casting recovery efforts as a chance to foster unity in a region whose Buddhist ethnic Tibetans have a history of chafing at Chinese rule.

"We can overcome the disaster and improve national unity in fighting the calamity," Wen was quoted saying, as state media put the number injured at more than 11,000.

The quake flattened thousands of the mud-and-wood homes inhabited by ethnic Tibetans, who make up more than 90 percent of the northwest region's people, and also heavily damaged sturdier concrete structures such as schools.

State media said the dead included 103 students and 12 teachers as schools and dormitories collapsed, with dozens more buried or missing.

The casualties recalled the devastating 2008 earthquake in neighbouring Sichuan province, in which thousands of students were among the 87,000 killed or missing in that disaster amid allegations shoddy construction was to blame.

Initial shipments of what will be eventually be 41,000 tents, 160,000 coats and 188,000 quilts began to arrive Friday afternoon, as well as an expected 185 tonnes of food and supplies ranging from cots to mobile toilets, the government said.

Newly homeless Jiegu residents expressed fears about disease due to large numbers of human and animal bodies left rotting in the open.

At a briefing in Beijing, government officials said no signs of epidemic had yet been seen but promised stepped-up efforts to head off the threat.

"(Authorities) have already started treating human waste and bodies in the disaster-stricken area to prevent any dangerous impact on the local environment," said Chen Xianyi, a health ministry official.

Diggers and other heavy equipment were among the machinery trickling into Jiegu but they remained unequal to the scale of the destruction and locals continued to pick frantically through collapsed buildings.

"There are people in here. We have got to find them. We can't stop until we find them," said a Tibetan Buddhist monk, one of several sorting through a pile of rubble in central Jiegu that reeked of the foul stench of dead bodies.

The thousands of rescuers who have poured into the mountainous region were battling temperatures that dipped to five degrees Celsius (41 Fahrenheit) as well as a lack of oxygen in the altitude of nearly 4,000 metres (13,000 feet).

Thousands of soldiers were joining police and other personnel in the effort.

Officials have assured the public that despite such challenges, the disaster will be dealt with but warned of delays due to difficulty in reaching the remote quake-hit area.

President Hu Jintao cut short a Latin American tour and Wen postponed a trip to Southeast Asia to deal with the disaster.