Storms hamper rescue efforts as quake toll continues to rise

Village threatened by flooding from earthquake lake

Rescue efforts for the 6.5-magnitude earthquake in Yunnan province have been hampered by continuous downpours, which have disrupted traffic and made food and medicine shortages more dangerous, as the death toll continues to rise.

The quake toll has risen to 398 with three missing, the latest official statistics showed Monday.

The strong earthquake has affected at least 1.08 million people in Zhaotong and Qujing, injured 1,801 and caused an emergency evacuation of around 230,000 residents on Monday, said the Yunnan Civil Affairs Department.

Around 11,000 police and firefighters, over 7,000 soldiers and armed police, as well as eight planes were rushed to the area Monday after the quake struck at 4:30 pm Sunday.

Thundershowers are expected in Ludian county, the epicenter, over the next four days, and temperatures could drop to 17 C at night.

The air force sent two cargo planes from Beijing and Chengdu to transport relief personnel and materials on Monday morning.

They include a relief team with geological experts and more than 20 sets of advanced emergency rescue devices, including drones, a mudslide early-warning and monitoring system and life detectors.

As of 11 am Monday, police had relocated more than 4,000 residents and rescued 107 people. Firefighters rescued 30 people, and also recovered 36 bodies from the rubble, figures from the Ministry of Public Security showed.

Premier Li Keqiang flew to the quake-hit area on Monday and reached the worst-hit Longquan village on foot. He urged the rescue of people as a top priority.

Rescuers are evacuating residents threatened by a quake lake, which was formed in Jiangbian village, Zhixiang township.

The water level of the lake is surging rapidly at a speed of one meter per hour. The lake was formed following a landslide that occurred above Hongshiyan hydropower station, which is under construction.

The hydropower station is some 20 kilometers away from Ludian. There are several hydropower stations, including the Xiluodu station, the country's second largest, in Zhaotong. This has led to questions as to whether the reservoirs may have been a factor in the earthquake.

It is premature to assume direct links between hydropower station construction and the Sunday earthquake, said Sun Shihong, a research fellow at the China Earthquake Networks Center.

A 5.6-magnitude earthquake hit Zhaotong in 2004 and damaged three local reservoirs, which drew attention to safety issues. However, hydropower station construction normally might cause low magnitude quakes with a shallow depth in the reservoir area, and the storage capacity has to reach more than 100 million cubic meters, Sun told the Global Times.

Wang Tun, a Sichuan-based earthquake expert, agreed and said that Yunnan is an earthquake-prone region that has seen severe quakes before the reservoirs existed.

Local seismic experts have warned that aftershocks measuring magnitude 5 to 6 are possible in the area, but ruled out the possibility of stronger quakes at the epicenter.

Zhaotong Party Chief Liu Jianhua said they are experiencing a severe shortage of professional rescue teams and facilities. Medics in Longquan village also said that they have severe shortages of medicine and local conditions are too poor to perform operations for the severely injured.

Traffic on a lifeline linking the epicenter at Longtoushan township and the county seat eased Monday morning after hours of gridlock.

Large numbers of the injured are being transferred to the county's hospital via road by ambulance.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs blamed poor housing structure and dense population at the epicenter for heavy casualties.

Most residences in the quake-hit zone are wood and earth structures. In the region hit hardest by the quake, about 90 percent of wood and earth and brick houses had collapsed or were damaged, according to the ministry.

The central government has also allocated 600 million yuan ($97.3 million) to fund rescue and relief efforts, the Ministry of Finance announced on Monday.