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China
Thousands of police and soldiers head for earthquake zone
Article published on the 2008-05-14 Latest update 2008-05-14 15:51 TU
The army has been mobilised for the rescue effort in Beichuan.
( Photo : Reuters )
100,000 police and military are heading for China’s Sichuan province, where the death toll from Monday’s earthquake is proving far worse than expected. More than 20,000 have died and that number is expected to rise. China’s official news agency estimates that 40,000 are still missing and their numbers could be added to the dead in the coming days.
The earthquake, which measured 7.9 on the Richter scale, along with several aftershocks, caused landslides, collapsed buildings and cut off road access to the region.
Chinese authorities have dispatched 100,000 rescue workers, some of whom parachuted out of planes to reach the hardest hit villages.
They reported that they found entire towns razed, with some 7,700 deaths in the town of Yingxiu alone.
China explained that a damaged transportation network meant additional teams could not be accommodated, despite the race against time to find people buried in the rubble, Japanese officials reported.
