China quake toll climbs to 1,144

Updated at: 0300 PST, Saturday, April 17, 2010
YUSHU” The death toll from a deadly earthquake in a remote part of western China has climbed to 1,144, state media said on Saturday.

Another 417 people are still missing following the quake, which hit Yushu county in Qinghai province on the Tibetan plateau on Wednesday, the official news agency said.

State media on Friday reported that another 417 people remain missing — as rescuers neared the end of the 72-hour period viewed as best for finding people alive. They continued to dig for survivors in the rubble, often by hand.

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.

Hundreds of the bodies were being prepared for a mass cremation Saturday morning. 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.

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.