NEW: Chinese earthquake rescue

22 April 2013

Summary:

China is continuing a massive rescue operation in Sichuan province, with thousands of workers, after a powerful earthquake on Saturday.

Report:

Rescue teams had already reached the remote villages inmountainous Baoxing County on foot, but landslides were blocking access to aid trucks and preventing some of the casualtiesfrom being brought out.

Now state media is reporting that a path has been cleared, although, in heavy fog, and with regular aftershocks, the going is slow.

Even in the more accessible areas of neighbouring Lushan county the aid effort has been hampered by congestion on the single road in, and some of those who've been made homeless are complaining that they've not yet received food or water.

Although on the same fault line, this earthquake was much less powerful than the one that struck Sichuan Province in 2008, and thedeath toll is not expected to rise significantly.

Once again though it is the poor who have borne the brunt of the disaster, with the biggest killer not the earthquake itself, but poorly constructed houses.