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Apr 18, 2010, 10:57 GMT Beijing - The death toll from last week's 7.1-magnitude earthquake in northwest China's Qinghai Province climbed to 1,706 on Sunday, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Some 256 people are still missing, according to latest figures from the rescue headquarters in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu, where the devastating quake hit Wednesday. President Hu Jintao flew to the affected region on Sunday to inspect relief efforts and visit victims. Some 12,128 people were injured in the quake, 1,424 of them severely. 'There will be new schools! There will be new homes!' Hu wrote in chalk on the blackboard of a makeshift classroom in a tent when visiting orphaned students in Yushu. Hu cut short a visit to Latin America to travel to the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, which sits about 4,000 meters above sea level. The high altitude, thin air, freezing temperatures and electricity shortages have hampered rescue operations, officials said. Since Wednesday, more than 10,000 professional rescuers, soldiers, police, firefighters and medical workers have mobilized nationwide for the rescue operation. But rescuers and sniffer dogs particularly had to fight altitude sickness and rough weather in the mountainous region, the agency reported. At least 200 trained rescuers were forced to leave the quake zone after they exhibited signs of altitude sickness, while thousands of rescuers struggled to search the debris of collapsed buildings for survivors, Xinhua said. Access to Yushu, about 800 kilometres from the provincial capital Xining, is difficult. Few planes can land at Yushu's small airport and sandstorms sometimes stop truck traffic, it said. Hu's plane landed at Batang Yushu Airport on Sunday morning after a more-than-three-hours' flight from Beijing. The president, who returned on Saturday after cutting short a visit to Latin America, headed for worst-hit Gyegu Town in Yushu immediately after landing. Hu first visited the village of Zhaxi Datong then went to see some of the injured at a makeshift medical centre sent up at the stadium in Yushu. The quake-hit province has received 375 million yuan (54.9 million dollars) in donations since the quake struck, the provincial bureau of finance said Sunday.
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