Death toll in China earthquake jumps to 1,144

The Associated Press

Saturday, April 17, 2010 | 12:25 a.m.

State media says the death toll from Wednesday's earthquake in western China has risen to 1,144.

The Xinhua News Agency says the new death toll is as of early Friday evening _ up from 791 reported Friday afternoon.

The report says another 417 people remain missing.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

JIEGU, China (AP) _ Tibetan monks prayed over hundreds of bodies Friday at a makeshift morgue next to their monastery after powerful earthquakes destroyed the remote mountain town of Jiegu in western China and left at least 791 people dead.

The official toll was likely to climb further. Gerlai Tenzing, a red-robed monk from the Jiegu Monastery, estimated that about 1,000 bodies had been brought to a hillside clearing in the shadow of the monastery. He said a precise count was difficult because bodies continued to trickle in and some had already been taken away by family members.

Dozens of monks began singing chants, or sutras, late in the afternoon and planned to begin cremating the unclaimed bodies Saturday. Genqiu, a 22-year-old monk, said it was impossible to perform traditional sky burials for all. Tibetan sky burials involve chopping a body into pieces and leaving it on a platform to be devoured by vultures.

"The vultures can't eat them all," said Genqiu, who like many Tibetans goes by one name.

Relief workers estimate that 70 percent to 90 percent of the town's wood-and-mud houses collapsed when the earthquakes hit Yushu county Wednesday morning.

China Central Television reported that a 13-year-old Tibetan girl was pulled from the toppled two-story Minzu Hotel on Friday after a sniffer dog alerted rescuers to her location. The girl, identified as Changli Maomu, was freed after a crane lifted a large concrete block out of the rubble, it said. Her condition was good and she was taken to a medical station for treatment, it said.

The official Xinhua News Agency said a 43-year-old Tibetan woman, Jang La, was also rescued after being trapped for 50 hours with no food or water.

"I thought no one would manage to save us and I lost hope, but as I yelled and yelled for help, they came and rescued us," Xinhua quoted her as saying. The woman's hips were crushed but she was stable, it said.

Xinhua reported Friday afternoon the confirmed death toll had risen to 791, with 294 missing. The report said 11,477 people were injured, 1,174 severely. The strongest of the quakes Wednesday was measured at magnitude 6.9 by the U.S. Geological Survey and 7.1 by China's earthquake administration.

Many survivors shivered through a second night outdoors as they waited for tents to arrive. Hundreds gathered on a plaza around a 50-foot (15-meter) tall statue of the mythical Tibetan King Gesar, wrapped in blankets taken from shattered homes.

Police had to intervene Friday to prevent young men from grabbing tents out of the back of a truck.

"I saw trucks almost attacked by local people because of the lack of food and shelter," said Pierre Deve, a program director at the Yushu-based community development organization Snowland Service Group. "It started yesterday, but you still see some things like this today. It's getting better. Chinese authorities are doing well."