Chinese woman rescued after 68 hours as quake toll hits 589

USPA News - Rescue workers in a mountainous region of southwestern China have rescued a 50-year-old woman, nearly three days after a powerful earthquake which has now claimed the lives of nearly 600 people, authorities said on Wednesday. A number of people remain missing.

The 50-year-old woman, identified as Liao Tengcui, was rescued at 12:25 p.m. local time on Wednesday, about 68 hours after the earthquake struck. The victim was extracted from the rubble of homes in Yinping Village of Longtongshan Township, after which rescuers carried her for 13 kilometers (8 miles) to get her to a field hospital. Liao, who was later transferred to another hospital, was conscious but had suffered serious injuries and could not move her left leg. Her rescue followed the rescue of an 88-year-old woman on Tuesday evening at Babao Village, where a 76-year-old man was rescued 1.5 hour earlier. Rescue workers in Yinping Village continued searching Wednesday for at least 11 people who remain missing there, but authorities said the chances of finding any more survivors became increasingly small. Wednesday`s news came as China`s Civil Affairs Ministry confirmed the death toll from Sunday`s earthquake had reached 589, while an unknown number of people remain missing. At least 2,401 people were injured. The 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck at about 4:30 p.m. local time (0830 GMT) on Sunday and was centered in Ludian County, which is located in Zhaotong prefecture of Yunnan province. It struck about 12 kilometers (7.4 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to China?s Earthquake Network Center (CENC). Hundreds of smaller aftershocks have followed. Buildings in China are extremely vulnerable to earthquake shaking, and even light earthquakes frequently cause serious damage and casualties. At least 193 people were killed in April 2013 when a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck southwestern China, and Sunday`s earthquake is the deadliest since April 2010, when a 7.1 quake in northwest China killed 2,698 people.