Aftershocks, supply shortage hinder quake rescue

Life miracle

The institute warned that rescuers should be aware of the secondary disasters such as falling rocks and landslides triggered by continual aftershocks, which have already caused great difficulties for the rescuers.

On the road linking Lushan and Baoxing, where the traffic has been newly restored, rolling stones triggered by the aftershocks kept hitting the roof of the passing vehicles.

Earthquake Strikes Ya'an, Sichuan

"It is like being hit by 'an intense shower'," said Sun Tiexiang, a Xinhua reporter who was travelling with the car of a local medical team.

Bao Yuhuai, a senior officer with an armed police rescue team in Lushan told Xinhua that aftershocks and the ensuing landslides are the biggest challenges in road clearing.

"Some sections we just cleared have been buried by falling stones after the aftershocks," he said.

But the nonstop rescue did pay off. According to the head office of China's armed police, 5,800 police staff have saved 103 people in quake hit areas.

More than 2,300 firemen who are engaged in rescue work have saved 96 people, according to China's Ministry of Public Security.

The total number of the people saved in the quake region, however, is not immediately known.

In the small hours on Sunday, a 12-year-old girl, pulled out of her collapsed house in Lushan by rescuers nearly two hours after the quake, came to herself from a nearly 14-hour coma thanks to a major chest operation in a military hospital in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan.

"It's definitely a difficult operation in such a situation," said Su Yonglin, the vice head of the hospital. "But it is a very successful one."