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FOUND ALIVE AFTER 8 DAYS

SURVIVOR: Ma Yuanjiang after his rescue yesterday

Wednesday May 21,2008

By Cyril Dixon

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A MAN and a woman have been pulled out alive after eight days beneath rubble in the aftermath of the Chinese earthquake.

Power station executive Ma Yuanjiang, 31, and Wang Youqun, 60, became symbols of hope yesterday as the toll of those dead or missing climbed to 70,000.

Mr Ma was kept alive by rescuers feeding him sweetened water as they dug him out.

Mrs Wang survived by drinking rainwater.

The power chief was discovered amid the devastation of Wenchuan county, the epicentre of the massive quake that hit at the beginning of last week.

Rescuers spent 30 hours digging him from the ruin of an office building while keeping him alive by feeding him the liquid through a straw.

Doctors amputated his left forearm and described his body as “fragile as that of a newborn baby”, said Chongqing Xinqiao hospital chief Wang Weidong.

But the woman suffered only a hip fracture and facial bruises in her ordeal, which began when a landslide swept away a temple in the city of Pengzhou. She was initially free to move, but an aftershock trapped her between two large stones. At one point she was unconscious for a day after a falling girder hit her head.

Both escapes offered encouragement to emergency teams. In another extraordinary scene, in Yingxiu, refugees from the disaster fled an aftershock landslide in a speedboat. They sped up a river flanked by steep cliffs, just outrunning a menacing dust cloud thrown up by the collapse.

China said last night the death toll is 40,000, expected to rise to at least 50,000. In addition 30,000 people are believed missing.

The Sichuan government warned of powerful aftershocks sweeping the epicentre region. They were expected to measure up to 7.0 on the Richter scale – not far below the 8.0 of the original earthquake.

Massive traffic jams appeared in Chengdu, the Sichuan provincial capital, as drivers fled built-up areas for open spaces, and many camped out in parks.

Jiang Li, vice minister of civil affairs, said five million people lost their homes. Nearly 280,000 tents have been shipped to the area and 700,000 more ordered.

Oil and gas operations in the affected zone were said to be back to normal, and regulators have ordered banks to provide loans to firms and individuals caught in the disaster.

Two pandas from the famous Wolong Nature Reserve were missing, although they were not thought to be in danger.

A third has been found safe and well.