BEIJING, May 20: A woman who drank rainwater and a man who was given sweetened water through a straw were on Tuesday pulled out of the rubble of China’s earthquake, eight days after the devastating tragedy.

The woman, who is in her 60s, had survived for more than 195 hours when rescuers in Pengzhou city, Sichuan province, found her conscious on Tuesady, the state Xinhua news agency said, citing Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV.

Earlier, a man who had spent 179 hours trapped was pulled from the remains of a power plant following a 30-hour rescue operation.

Ma Yuanjiang, a 31-year-old executive at the plant, was freed at 00:50 am on Tuesday after a team chiselled through 10 slabs of cement, opening up a tunnel, Xinhua said.

Doctors said his internal organs were in good condition, but Ma’s left forearm had to be amputated and he had lacerations in his abdomen, the report said.

Ma was surprisingly able to speak and eat and drink small amounts after spending so long under the rubble of the office section of the power plant, Xinhua said.

He was discovered alive on Sunday as rescuers dug a hole and saved one of his colleagues, who could be pulled out only after amputation, Xinhua said.

Ma had been buried on the second floor of the plant’s office section.

The quake in southwestern China has left more than 40,000 dead and almost five million homeless, according to Xinhua.

Finding the two alive are the latest in a string of “miracle” rescues that have captivated the nation but the positive outcomes contrast with the misery of desperate relatives.

Rescuers and people whose family members are missing are still clinging to fading hopes, said Xinhua. Messages that read “searching for missing families” are proliferating on government websites, TV screens and online chatrooms.

Last week’s quake in Sichuan province has killed or left missing at least 71,000 people, according to the government.

Ma had been in a meeting when the earthquake flattened the power plant in Wenchuan county, close to the epicentre of the quake, which measured 8.0-magnitude on the Richter scale, the report said.

More than 100 rescuers were involved in the operation to save Ma, digging inch by inch with hammers and shovels, Xinhua said.

Ma, the vice director of the power generation department at the Yingxiu Bay Hydropower plant, was taken to a hospital in Chongquing said Xinhua, adding that he asked for water during the trip.

More than 10,000 people are still believed to be buried under the debris of flattened buildings in Sichuan, according to provincial authorities, but hopes of finding survivors are rapidly running out.—AFP