Amidst treacherous conditions and vanishing hopes of finding survivors, a 60-year old woman who kept herself alive by drinking rainwater has been pulled out from under a mountain of rubble 196 hours after a massive earthquake struck southwest China. Rescuers saved Wang Youqun, a retired shop assistant from the provincial capital of Chendgu. Wang was in a temple in the mountainous Jiufeng village when the quake occurred. Most of her body was buried in debris when she was found on Tuesday, rescuers said, adding she was receiving treatment at a hospital in Chengdu, the capital of the worst-hit Sichuan province. A man named Ma Yuanjiang was also saved on Tuesday from the rubble in Wenchuan County, nearly 179 hours after the powerful earthquake. Such miracle rescue stories have been hard to come by eight days after the 8 magnitude temblor, the worst in three decades in China, but the top leadership has vowed that rescuers would look for survivors as long as there was a ‘glimmer of hope’. The confirmed death toll from the quake mounted to 40,075 as the government struggled to wrestle with the mammoth task of providing shelter to nearly five million people rendered homeless by the earthquake. Tents and awnings have been named the most wanted material by more than 110,000 military and other rescuers. Each homeless quake victim lacking an income would be provided a daily subsidy of 10 Yuan and 500 grams of food for three months starting from late May, Xinhua said. Premier Wen Jiabao has ordered supply of 250,000 makeshift housing structures by the end of June and one million within three months, official Xinhua news agency said, even as factories across China ramped up production of tents. China has appealed for more tents from within the country and as part of international aid that has been pouring for relief and rescue effort. The quake has left 2,47,645 people injured, posing a gigantic challenge to authorities to provide medical relief. After allowing international rescue teams from Japan, Russia, Singapore and South Korea, China said it would let in medical teams from Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan to work in the disaster-hit areas. India is also sending three fresh planeloads of supplies including medicines, tents and temporary shelters to Sichuan province over the next three days from Wednesday. Rescuers who have reached all the 1,044 quake-hit areas under 134 townships in southwestern Sichuan province are still looking for survivors and bringing food and water to the affected, Xinhua said quoting a military source. Meanwhile, the government has issued a warning to officials of severe punishment if they are found involved in corruption linked to earthquake relief. The country's top anti-graft body published a notice saying it would punish any official who sought ‘personal advantage’ or did not ‘fulfil their duties’ in aid work for the disaster, Xinhua said. Donations to quake-hit regions had reached USD 2.01 billion by Tuesday, Xinhua said.
