(chinadaily.com.cn/Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-05-25 16:21

The death toll from the May 12 earthquake in southwest China's Sichuan Province has claimed 62,664 lives and left 358,816 injured and 23,775 missing as of noon on Sunday, according to the State Council Information Office.

Guo Weimin, director of the State Council Information Office, announced the latest official statistics concerning the Wenchuan quake on behalf of the State Council General Headquarters for Earthquake Relief, at Sunday's press conference in Beijing. 

In Sichuan alone, a total of 62,161 people have been confirmed dead in the May 12 earthquake and another 347,401 people injured as of 4:30 pm Sunday, a local official said.

The province has recorded about 8,000 aftershocks after the 8.0-magnitude earthquake on May 12, with the strongest measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale reported on Sunday afternoon. 

One person was confirmed dead and 25 others were seriously injured in Sunday's strong aftershock.

"The death and 24 injuries were all reported in collapsed houses or landslides," said Wang Fei, an official with the disaster relief office in Guangyuan City. He said details of the victims were not immediately available.

Another injury was reported in Wenxian County of the northwestern Gansu Province, which borders Qingchuan.

The strongest aftershock since the catastrophic Wenchuan County quake almost two weeks ago also destroyed or severely damaged about 270,000 houses, and like the original quake, was felt elsewhere around China.

About 71,300 houses collapsed and more than 200,000 others were in danger of collapse after the aftershock, said Wang Fei, an official with the disaster relief office in Guangyuan City.

He said details about the victims were not immediately available.

Wang said a mud-rock flow triggered by the aftershock had disrupted traffic from Qingchuan County to Guangyuan City, but no serious landslides were immediately reported.

Longnan City in northwest China's Gansu Province reported 22 injuries. Of those, 17 injuries -- two serious -- were in Wenxian County, which borders Qingchuan.

The strongest aftershock since the 8.0-magnitude quake of May 12 hit at 4:21 pm was felt in many parts of the province and beyond, including Sichuan's capital Chengdu and neighboring provinces as Shaanxi, said Hou Jianmin, a senior engineer with China National Seismic Network.

The aftershock was said to have lasted for about a minute and many high-rises in Chengdu rocked slightly.

A Beijinger said he felt the aftershock, too, from his 25th floor office. Residents on lower floors did not feel the tremor.

The tremor was also felt in Xi'an, capital of the northwestern Shaanxi Province, where residents fled homes and offices to seek shelter in open spaces.

A hotel worker in Shaanxi's Hanzhong City said she felt clearly the aftershock was strong and "next only to the May 12 quake".

About 40 minutes before the aftershock, local residents said the weather in Hanzhong City became overcast and high winds began to blow. Mobile communication was in failure for a while.

In Lueyang county of Hanzhong, the tremor caused a cave-in on a provincial highway and disrupted traffic, said the county's publicity official Chen Weiming.

Chen said no casualties had been reported, but some houses collapsed and landslides occurred.

Lurking danger from quake lakes

In the quake zone in Sichuan, about 1,600 armed police officers and People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers were hiking on Sunday toward an expanding "quake lake," hoping to blast away its landslide barrier before it bursts and causes a flood.

"The rescuers have 10 kilograms of dynamite each and are expected to arrive at the site on Sunday night," a PLA spokesman said on Sunday.

Earlier attempts to send military helicopters on the same mission were hampered by adverse weather and low visibility at the Tangjiashan lake site in Beichuan County, one of the hardest-hit areas in the 8.0-magnitude earthquake of May 12.

The local meteorological bureau forecast high winds and thunderstorms for the area on Sunday and Monday.

The Tangjiashan quake lake, which is in danger of bursting as water builds up in it, is one of the more than 30 such lakes in rivers blocked by landslides from the earthquake and thousands of aftershocks.

The lake is 3.2 km upstream from the Beichuan County seat, from which thousands of survivors have been evacuated since Wednesday.

Its barrier is in danger of bursting as the water level rose by nearly 2 meters on Saturday to 723 meters, only 29 meters below the lowest part of the barrier, which measured 752 meters high.

At an emergency meeting in Chengdu, the Sichuan capital, on Sunday, Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu ordered rescuers to remove the risk "with utmost effort and within the shortest possible time."