Monks pray for dead as earthquake rescue winds down
State media reported that 417 people remain missing – as rescuers neared the end of the 72-hour period viewed as best for finding people alive. They continued to dig for survivors in the rubble, often by hand.
Gerlai Tenzing, a red-robed monk from the Jiegu Monastery, estimated that 1,000 bodies had been brought to a hillside clearing in the shadow of the monastery. He said a precise count was difficult as bodies continued to trickle in and some had been taken away by family members.
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Hide AdEarlier, China Central Television reported that a 13-year-old Tibetan girl was pulled from the toppled two-storey Minzu Hotel yesterday after a sniffer dog alerted rescuers to her location. Changli Maomu's condition was good and she was taken to a medical station for treatment.
Relief workers have estimated that 70-90 per cent of the town's wood-and-mud houses collapsed when the earthquakes hit Yushu county, in the western province of Qinghai, on Wednesday.