Rescuers appealed for temporary housing and tents Monday after a weekend earthquake in southwest China killed at least 36 people, injured hundreds and left tens of thousands of homes in ruins.
The temblor Saturday in Sichuan province, which the US Geological Survey measured at magnitude 5.7, struck along the same fault line as a May 12 earthquake that killed nearly 70,000.
"We need temporary houses ... we need more than 10,000 tents," said Zhang Hai, head of the foreign liaison office of the Communist Party propaganda department in Panzhihua city. "This is a mountainous place and so we can't build temporary houses everywhere."
The beginning of the school year, which was supposed to be Monday, was postponed for a week because authorities were inspecting damage in classrooms, he said.
"We still can't bring all kids back to their previous classrooms," Zhang said.
China is still basking in the glory of hosting an extravagant and widely viewed Olympic Games that International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge called "truly exceptional." But the earthquake underscores the country's need to turn its attention back to pressing domestic issues such as high inflation, pollution, and now disaster relief.
The quake killed five people in Panzhihua and surrounding rural areas, and the death toll also included 25 victims in Sichuan province's Huili county, local officials said. Authorities in the Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture in neighbouring Yunnan province reported six deaths.