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DUJIANGYAN, China - A girl murmuring "save me, save me" was pulled from the rubble 50 hours after her school was destroyed in China's earthquake, but hundreds of her fellow pupils died, state media said Thursday.
Rescuers prised apart slabs of cement late Wednesday to reach He Cuiqing, who was among 857 students at the three-storey middle school who were taking an afternoon rest when the 7.9-magnitude tremor struck on Monday.
A rescuer said he heard He's weak voice saying, "Uncle, save me, save me," China's state news agency Xinhua reported from hard-hit southwestern Sichuan province.
"If anything had happened to her, the voice would haunt me for the rest of my life," the rescuer was quoted as saying.
A nurse, Wang Guangfen, climbed under the slabs to give the girl medicine during the rescue effort.
"She appeared very fragile and there were blood stains on her chest," Wang said, according to Xinhua.
"But she was still conscious and called me aunt when I reached her," she said.
Eighty-four students have been rescued from the school's ruins by hundreds of rescuers, Xinhua said.
But they are the lucky ones. Xinhua said at least 270 students at the school were confirmed dead by Thursday morning. Another 139 students escaped after the quake.
Nearly 15,000 people were killed and more than 40,000 others were missing or buried under rubble in China's worst earthquake in three decades, according to official tallies.
One horrifying aspect has been the number of schools destroyed, raising questions over their safety.
Among other cases, at least 1,000 staff and teachers were dead or missing at a middle school in Beichuan, while hundreds were feared buried at another school in Juyuan. - AFP/ir
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