MIANZHU, China (AFP) - China scrambled on Wednesday to provide shelter and prevent disease among five million people made homeless by last week's earthquake, as the number of dead and missing climbed above 74,000.
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With hope virtually extinguished of finding more survivors amid the rubble of the devastated towns and villages across mountainous Sichuan province, soldiers and relief workers focused on the desperate plight of those displaced.
Nine days after the 8.0-magnitude quake, the government said the confirmed number of people killed had risen to 41,353. But with another 32,666 confirmed still missing, the death toll is likely to soar.
Stopping disease outbreaks among the five million people displaced in the disaster has become a top concern, and China's health ministry has sent more than 3,500 specialists in epidemic control to Sichuan.
Doctors in the region were also ordered to test all quake survivors who needed medical treatment for a potentially deadly bacterial infection, known as gas gangrene , that has led to 30 people having amputations.
There have been no reports of a major outbreak, but gangrene patients have been isolated to stop infections from spreading.
Authorities across the quake zones are working frantically to ensure people have access to clean water, a must to avoid potentially deadly epidemics of diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea.
"We don't have anything. We don't know where we're going to find money to rebuild our village," said Ma Jingsuan, 52, who was one of 7,000 people seeking refuge among a sea of blue tents on the fringes of Sichuan's Mianzhu city.
"We're entirely dependent on the government."
Premier Wen Jiabao has ordered 900,000 tents to be sent to the disaster area over the next month, and up to one million makeshift structures by August.
Across many cities in Sichuan, bulldozers were levelling ground to set up camps, according to AFP reporters there.
On the outskirts of Dujiangyan, a city where hundreds of people were killed, crews raced to slap together semi-permanent homes for 4,000 to 5,000 people on a muddy area the size of about three football fields.
The goal was to finish in three days, one survivor there said.
The stench of death hung over ravaged mountain towns. In Hanwang, the only signs of life were of the few survivors who came to collect their belongings.
China has faced some criticism for not allowing in specialist search and rescue teams from overseas immediately after the quake, and then only allowing in small contingents from a few countries.
However, China has been more open in the campaign to look after the displaced, and plane loads of aid from countries as diverse as Ukraine, Russia, the United States and Singapore have landed in southwest China.
That international effort was ramping up, after China appealed on Tuesday for tents and other supplies from within China and overseas.
Saudi Arabia has sent more than 85,000 tents and 500,000 blankets, on top of a cash donation of 50 million dollars, China's state-run press reported.
The German Red Cross was also sending over a mobile hospital capable of accommodating 120 patients, which state press said would be the first facility of its kind contributed by any country.
A Japanese medical team of more than 20 doctors, nurses and other experts also left on Tuesday for China to help victims.
On Tuesday, 60-year-old Wang Youqun, who survived on rain water, was rescued nearly 200 hours after being buried under a collapsed temple.
She was the last person to have been hauled out of the rubble alive.
China began an unprecedented three-day period of mourning on Monday that has seen many entertainment venues across the country closed and state-controlled television suspend normal broadcasts to focus fully on the recovery effort.
As in the previous two days, thousands of people gathered Wednesday at Tiananmen Square, the nation's political heart in Beijing, to chant messages of support for victims of the tragedy.
Meanwhile, Tibet's government-in-exile called for a temporary halt to protests around the world against China's rule of the Himalayan region out of respect for the quake victims.
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Wednesday, May 21, 2008
TEST POST 2
TEST POST 1
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Hillary Rodham Clinton cast her victory in Kentucky as an overwhelming vote of confidence Tuesday and said she's still running for president not to demonstrate that she's tough but to ensure that Democrats retake the White House.
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"This continues to be a tough fight, and I have fought it the only way I know how — with determination, by never giving up and never giving in," Clinton told supporters in Kentucky. Oregon also voted Tuesday, though, and Barack Obama won there, giving him a majority of the delegates elected in all 56 primaries and caucuses combined.
Clinton said she has pressed on in the race "not because I've wanted to demonstrate my toughness, but because I believe passionately that for the sake of our country, the Democrats must take back the White House and end Republican rule. ... That's why I'm still running and that's why you're still voting."
In her lopsided Kentucky victory, Clinton defeated Obama among voters of all age groups and incomes, the college-educated and non-college-educated, self-described liberals, moderates and conservatives, according to interviews with voters. Obama did far better in Oregon, where a majority of voters called themselves liberal. He was winning nearly six in 10 whites, and he and Clinton were were evenly dividing the votes of working-class whites.
With just two weeks and three contests left in the primary season, it is doubtful that Clinton can close the delegate gap with Obama. While she has collected a number of wins in late primaries, Obama keeps gaining on her in the all-important race for convention delegates.
But the former first lady maintains that she still sees a path to victory by winning over the party leaders and elected officials known as superdelegates, whose support will be needed for either candidate to be clinch the nomination.
"Neither Senator Obama nor I will have reached that magic number when the voting ends on June 3," she said. "And so, our party will have a tough choice to make — who's ready to lead our party at the top of our ticket, who is ready to defeat Senator McCain in the swing states and among swing voters."
The New York senator hopes a resounding win like Tuesday's victory in Kentucky will help convince superdelegates that she is more viable as a general election candidate. It has become increasingly difficult argument to make, however, and Obama has slowly begun to play the role of the inevitable rival to Republican John McCain.
Obama and McCain have largely ignored Clinton in recent days as they clashed over foreign policy, and Obama's campaign schedule is starting to include more stops in general election battleground states.
Clinton has argued that if the results of disputed primaries in Michigan and Florida are counted, she leads Obama in the popular vote. Clinton won both contests but the results were voided because the votes took place in January in violation of Democratic Party rules. The Democratic National Committee's rules committee meets May 31 to consider its options on the Michigan and Florida delegations. Clinton has said both should be seated at the convention in August.
While campaigning in Kentucky and Oregon over the past several days, Clinton has been increasingly forceful in making her pitch to include the disputed results. She was expected to turn up the volume on Wednesday during several appearances in south Florida, and her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, said she was likely to travel to Michigan to do the same there.
Her husband, the former president, said at a campaign stop in Louisville on Tuesday that voiding the Michigan and Florida primary votes "violates our values and is dumb politics."
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