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CHENGDU, China: A woman who survived on rainwater and a man fed via a straw were on Tuesday pulled out of the rubble eight days after China's earthquake but hopes faded for others as the death toll topped 40,000.
Amid fears of new aftershocks among a traumatised population, Beijing put out a fresh urgent appeal for tents as foreign medical teams began to arrive in southwestern Sichuan province.
Despite the overwhelming odds against finding any more survivors under the rubble, rescue workers on Tuesday saved a 60-year-old woman, Wang Youqun, nearly 200 hours after the earthquake, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.
Wang was in a temple in the town of Pengzhou when the earthquake, 8.0 on the Richter scale, hit on May 12. She fell into a coma but eventually crept out and was found in rubble on Tuesday, it said.
She survived by drinking rainwater, Xinhua said. Hong Kong-based Phoenix television said she was in a stable condition.
In another case on Tuesday, rescuers saved Ma Yuanjiang after a 30-hour dig that included chiselling through 10 slabs of cement, Xinhua said.
The team fed the 31-year-old sugary water through a straw as they broke through the rubble of a power plant where he was an executive, Xinhua said.
Ma was able to speak, eat and drink small amounts as he was rushed to hospital but his left forearm had to be amputated, it said.
Another man, Peng Guohua, was saved on Monday in a lime mine after he drank his own urine to survive, according to state press.
Such improbable survival stories have inspired many Chinese, who on Monday came to an unprecedented three-minute standstill to honour the victims of the earthquake.
But the number of rescues has tapered off, and the frantic pace of searching for survivors in the endless rubble has slowed, as the reality sets in that finding any more people alive after so long is almost impossible.
The government said on Tuesday that the death toll from the earthquake had risen to 40,075. A cabinet spokesman said hours earlier the number of dead and missing was nearly 66,000.
During a meeting with his cabinet, Premier Wen Jiabao ordered 900,000 tents to be sent to the disaster area over the next month and up to one million makeshift structures by August.
"We are setting up relocation and resettlement centres for the affected people. That is why we most need tents in large quantities," Jiang Li, vice minister of civil affairs, told reporters.
The earthquake has triggered an outpouring of sympathy around the world, with both US President George W. Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy personally visiting Chinese embassies to sign condolence books.
But international criticism started to build over China's decision to let in foreign rescuers only three days after the earthquake.
"There was a delay in the decision-making. It would have been better if the decision was quicker," Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said in Tokyo.
A Japanese team, the first official foreign team on the scene, was heading home without finding any survivors, although another Japanese unit left Japan on Tuesday to provide medical relief.
Across southwestern China, tens of thousands of residents ran for safety on Tuesday over fears of another earthquake, carrying bedding, chairs, clothes and other possessions.
"Anyone who says he is not afraid is just kidding," said Zhu Yuejin, a 23-year-old saleswoman who spent the night in a car.
A warning on the Sichuan government website, quoting seismological authorities, said that a strong aftershock of 6.0 to 7.0 magnitude would strike the same area ravaged by last week's massive tremor.
But Du Jianguo, a Beijing-based researcher with China's Institute of Earthquake Science, said it was impossible to predict aftershocks so accurately.
"I don't know who made such a forecast, but personally I don't believe it," he told AFP.
Fuelling fears among the superstitious, residents of the southern city of Zunyi reported a massive migration of frogs and toads, which also covered Sichuan towns days before the May 12 earthquake, according to state media.
China has been hit by more than 150 aftershocks measuring 4.0 or higher on the Richter scale since the initial tremor, including one early on Tuesday that measured 5.0.
That tremor appeared to cause further damage in the quake zone, which spans 100,000 square kilometres of mountainous Sichuan, an area roughly three times the size of Belgium.
The warning of the powerful aftershock set off nerves on China's stock markets, contributing to a nearly 4.5 percent drop in share prices, dealers said.
The central government announced a daily 10 yuan (1.43 dollar) allowance for quake victims, lasting three months, and also ordered tax relief and loan extensions to be applied in the disaster zone. - AFP/de
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