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XIANGQUAN, China - The rescue of 40 half-starved people from a remote village 16 days after China's earthquake provided a rare piece of good news on Thursday as rain threatened more misery for millions of survivors.
A military helicopter plucked the villagers from their quake-shattered mountain homes on Wednesday after some of them had survived on little more than rice and wild herbs, state press reported.
Their rescue was the latest in a string of extraordinary survival stories that have emerged from the horror of the May 12 quake in Sichuan province, which killed over 68,000 people and displaced more than 15 million others.
But the enormous scope of dealing with its aftermath remained the main focus on Thursday, as the danger of potentially devastating floods rose again with steady rain falling across the quake zone.
The most pressing priority was the draining of a so-called "quake lake", a massive body of water sitting above millions of people that was formed after the huge tremor triggered landslides and blocked a river.
Officials have warned rainfall would further swell the lake and, if it burst, flash floods would sweep across large tracts of Sichuan, bringing with it torrents of rubble from the quake.
Compounding the danger was the presence of about 5,000 tonnes of dangerous chemicals downstream from the lake at Tangjiashan, said Ma Ning, a top regional official with the nation's environmental protection bureau.
Efforts to move the materials, which included hydrochloric acid and were held at dozens of local companies, were to have begun Thursday, the Beijing News quoted Ma as saying.
As earth-movers continued the delicate task of clearing a channel for a controlled release of the water at the lake, officials forged ahead with preparations downstream for further, massive evacuations.
Rescue workers have already evacuated 158,000 people in the most imminent danger from any breach of the lake at Tangjiashan.
"Experts have figured out what parts of the town would be flooded if the dam bursts so those people have already been moved out," Han Jun, 30, told AFP in his hometown of Xiangquan.
"If there was anyone there and the dam bursts, they would have one hour to move out," he said.
In the hard-hit city of Mianyang, authorities have put residents through repeated evacuation drills.
"The efforts are aimed at getting all 1.3 million residents on the move within four hours in case the quake lake's bank fully opens," said the city's Communist Party chief, Tan Li.
The 40 survivors rescued on Wednesday came from Yangjiakou village, which was about 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the nearest town.
The group was prevented from escaping due to landslides triggered by the quake, the West China Metropolitan Daily said.
The survivors, who included local villagers and a group of mining company workers, were flown to a nearby temporary camp for earthquake survivors.
Meanwhile, China continued a mammoth effort to feed, house and meet the medical needs of the millions of other survivors.
Foreign assistance has provided vital support to the effort, and China's foreign ministry said Thursday it may accept help from Japan's military in sending aid to the quake-ravaged areas.
If the aid was sent over, it would be the first military air mission from Japan to China since invading Japanese troops left the country at the end of World War II.
The foreign help has been more than matched by an unprecedented outpouring of domestic donations of money and supplies. From home and abroad, about 35 billion yuan (five billion dollars) have been donated.
But worryingly in a country well known for graft, numerous reports have already emerged of quake aid being abused or diverted by corrupt officials.
In an acknowledgement of the problem, the ruling Communist Party said it has set up a special body to oversee the proper use of such aid and vowed "quick, strict and harsh penalties" for abuses.
The confirmed death toll given by the government on Thursday was 68,516, a rise of just over 400 from the previous day, with another 19,350 missing. - AFP/ac/ir
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