May 17, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 11, 1429

BEIJING, May 16: More than 4.8 million people have been left homeless in China’s south-western Sichuan province by the recent earthquake, a senior local official said on Friday.

A total of 4,807,200 people have been forced into “temporary shelter” in the province, Li Chengyun, the vice-governor of Sichuan, told a news conference.

More than 50,000 people are estimated to have died in Monday’s 7.9-magnitude earthquake, China’s deadliest natural disaster in a generation.

The structures that have been left standing have seen overflowing crowds of survivors, with some people forced to stay outside for lack of space.

The extent of the homeless problem became known only on Friday, a provincial official said.

“Before today, communications and roads to some cities and counties in the province were cut off because of the quake,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“That’s why the number has increased so fast now that links have been restored with the cities and counties,” he said.

Meanwhile, rescuers in Beichuan county pulled 33 people alive from the rubble on Friday, four days after a major earthquake struck China as emergency workers hoped for “more miracles,” state media said.

A child was found by rescuers as they scoured through the rubble of a middle school in the quake-devastated town of Beichuan, according to the Xinhua news agency.

The report said rescuers could hear more voices calling for help and were “expecting more miracles.” “The possibility is very great that we can rescue the buried,” a rescue worker was quoted as saying. “Giving up is excluded from our dictionary.”—AFP