Special Report: Qinghai Earthquake
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| A group of rescuers aggregate to carry out rescue works at Jiegu Town in Yushu County of northwest China's Qinghai Province,on early April 16 6,2010.(Xinhua/Wang Peng) |
YUSHU, Qinghai, April 16 (Xinhua) -- Relatives cried, monks prayed, and rescuers clapped Friday as a teenage girl emerged alive after more than two days under the flattened ruins of a hotel in quake-stricken west China.
The 13-year-old was immediately carried away to a medical center in Gyegu town at about 2 p.m. as delighted rescuers congratulated each other.
However, the excitement after the six-hour dig was short-lived as they suppressed their fatigue and the nausea of altitude sickness to return to work.
The young life saved was also an acute reminder that the time for survival is slipping away.
Thousands of rescuers know they are fighting the clock to pull more people from the debris in the remote northwest China town as the optimum survival time is just 72 hours.
But the high altitude, thin air, freezing temperatures and electricity shortages are hampering their efforts.
By Friday at least two dozen trained rescuers had stood down due to altitude sickness, said police and military sources participating in the rescue.
The 7.1-magnitude quake hit the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu in southern Qinghai Province early Wednesday. By Friday, at least 791 people were dead, 11,486 were injured, and 294 were missing.
The quake flattened 15,000 residential buildings in Gyegu town near the epicenter and many people are believed to still be trapped under the rubble.
The impoverished town sits about 4,000 meters above sea level. Conditions are especially hard for the injured who are yet to be reached.
A CRY FOR LIFE
Tibetan woman Jang La, 43, told Xinhua at a medical tent that she was buried for more than 50 hours and had no access to food and water.
"I thought no one would manage to save us and I lost hope, but as I yelled and yelled for help, they came and rescued us," Jang La said.
Medical attendant Jiao Xiaojie said Jang La's hips were crushed under falling masonry, but her condition appeared stable.
Jiao said he had treated four or five people who were rescued Friday morning.
A string of survivors on Friday were sent to the emergency tents for treatment at Gyegu. Trucks carrying the sick and the injured zigzagged out of the mountainous region to the provincial capital of Xining.
"The first 72 hours offers the best chance of survival after such a calamity strikes," said Xi Mei, a medical attendant with the China International Rescue Medical Team.
But time is running out.
Fu Yong, head of a group of rescuers from Lanzhou, Gansu Province, said they had pulled out six bodies, but no survivors.
"The possibility of survival is getting slim, but we are still looking for miracles," he said.
Wang Qinlin, head of a group of police rescuers, said his men, armed with life detectors, had spread out to remote villages, small alleys in and around Gyegu to find survivors.
"We are fighting the clock and we will not give up on the smallest chance," he said. "Once a sign of life is detected, we call in the back-up team and start digging."
ALTITUDE SICKNESS
Since Wednesday, thousands of professional rescuers, soldiers, police, fire-fighters and medical workers have been mobilized nationwide for the rescue operation.
Premier Wen Jiabao arrived at Yushu late Thursday to oversee work and urged all-out efforts to save lives.
But rescuers and sniffer dogs particularly had to fight altitude sickness and rough weather in this mountainous Tibetan region.
More than two dozen fire-fighters from the country's southern coast had to back out of the operation after suffering altitude sickness, sources with the rescue headquarters said.
A Xinhua reporter saw a couple of soldiers looking sick and vomiting as they dug through the rubble. Some were getting drip treatment at the rescue site.
"(Altitude sickness) is not an issue. The focus is to find survivors and we will never give up," Fu said.
Even Tibetan monks who came to join the rescue operations from nearby towns felt sick. "We sleep on the ground covered with only clothes. It's cold. And some developed symptoms of altitude sickness," a monk told Xinhua.
He said he and more than 700 monks came to Gyegu to join the rescue operations. They dug through rubble with bare hands and were able to find five survivors.
"We also pray for the dead. It's our responsibility," he said.
An altitude sickness medical treatment team departed by car from Xining, capital of the province, to the quake-hit area Friday afternoon, said the team leader Geruli, vice president of Qinghai University and executive director of the International Society for Mountain Medicine.
The team consists of six experts of the Key Laboratory of Mountain Medicine of Qinghai university.
Geruli said the team was expected to arrive Saturday morning as the way from Xining to Yushu was much more crowded than expected.
VOLUNTEER REGISTRATION DESK
As of Friday afternoon there were more than 400 volunteers registered at the "registration office" which has only two wooden desks and several chairs on the field of Yushu Stadium.
"I have time, so I came," said a volunteer organizer named Lai Jintu, who gave up his ceramics business in east China's Fujian Province and hurried to Yushu by plane early Wednesday.
"When I arrived, the volunteers had not been organized," said Jin who had participated in the rescuing work after Sichuan earthquake on May 12 2008.
Lai tore a red flag and made red belts for volunteers, which identified them as such.
"The volunteers are from Jilin, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Guangdong, Hongkong and Macao. They are middle school students, white-colors, retired teachers..." Lai said.
Lai had divided the 400 volunteers into groups performing different tasks.
"We do whatever we can," he said.
One of the volunteers named Xin Tuji, 48 years old, came here by train with his son from Xi'an ,capital of neighboring Shaanxi Province after telling his wife a white lie to get away.
"I told her that I came to Weinan (a city northeast to Xi'an) to teach my son how to drive. I was afraid she would worry if she knew I was here," Xin said.
It was a repeat of what Xin did to get to Sichuan right after the fatal quake in 2008, he did not want his wife to worry then as well.
"The town lacked water, so I brought water from Xi'an and gave it to the rescuers," he said.
"The place needs more disease prevention work and no food distribution center had been set up yet. I would like to help with these things in the next few days," he said.
More volunteers are on their way as 1,200 people from all over the country had applied to be volunteers to Qinghai provincial committee of the Communist Youth League of China as of Friday noon.
MORE MIRACLES
A Tibetan woman in her eighties was salvaged by rescuers with the PLA's No.536 Hospital from the rubble near central plaza of Gyegu Town at 4 p.m. Friday, 57 hours after the quake.
The old woman's legs had been broken but was recovering well after medical treatment, according to the hospital's rescuers.
Huang Jianfa, captain of China International Search and Rescue Team, told Xinhua that emergency rescue operations around the world have proved elderly people and females have more chances of survival in earthquakes than young people and males, since they are generally mild-tempered, which helps preserve body energy beneath the debris.
About the 72-hour prime time for rescue, Huang said this was estimated by statistics gained from previous earthquake rescue operations and the human body's physiological limit.
