<i>Rescuers hear cry for help in quake rubble</i>
A Chinese boy waits to be rescued from the rubbles of a collapsed building in Beichuan, southwest China's Sichuan province yesterday after an earthquake measuring 7.8 rocked the province. China's biggest earthquake for a generation left tens of thousands dead, missing or buried under the rubble of crushed communities, plunging the nation into an all-out aid effort.Photo: AFP
Rescuers scrambling over the twisted metal and concrete of this devastated Chinese city said Tuesday they can still hear voices from the rubble more than 24 hours after it was hit by a quake.
With time running out for around 6,000 people who remain buried here, one People's Liberation Army soldier said they remained hopeful of pulling people out alive.
"Definitely we can hear voices," said the soldier, who did not want to be named. "We will see if we can get to them."
Mianzhu, a city of around 500,000 people, is just 60 kilometres (36 miles) from the epicentre of the 7.9-magnitude quake that struck Monday in southwest China's Sichuan province.
According to latest government estimates it has killed up to 12,000 people so far, and there are fears it will soar further as more details emerge.
In Mianzhu alone, just north of the provincial capital Chengdu, the death toll is at least 2,000.
Li Huaqing watched anxiously as a rescue team frantically dug through the rubble of a collapsed Bank of China building where his brother was among some 30 people believed to be buried.
"My younger brother is in there," 42-year-old Li -- his eyes bloodshot from sleep deprivation -- told AFP, as his sister-in-law cried next to him.
"We have not slept, we've stood here all night watching."
Thousands of people remain missing in Mianzhu. Many, like Li's brother, are thought buried under the metal and roof-sized broken slabs of concrete.
"We can still hear voices," one local policeman working with a rescue team confided from beside the rubble that was once the bank.
As ambulances and police cars raced past with sirens blazing, shell-shocked residents walked through their destroyed city often unsure of what to do.
Many who have been made homeless found areas of refuge in the city's parks, setting up makeshift tents with bed sheets, umbrellas and cardboard.
"Everywhere it's totally destroyed, there are rescue workers looking for people in many places," one young man said as he surveyed the devastation.
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