China’s state news agency says two women have been rescued after being trapped for nearly a week by the massive earthquake that hit the country.
Xinhua said Monday that the two were found in the rubble of a collapsed building at a coal mine in Sichuan province, The Associated Press reported. A man who endured entombment for 148 hours in the town of Yingxiu was rescued and celebrated on Sunday.
The rescues are the latest in increasingly rare survivor stories in Sichuan province, where an air of hopelessness began to set in. The search for survivors was scaled back in many places, and rescue workers began focusing on the task of cremating or burying the dead.
In Beijing, officials announced a three-day mourning period during which the ceremonial relay of the Olympic torch, which has been traveling through China, would be suspended.
Nearly a week after the enormous earthquake devastated much of north-central Sichuan, officials raised the death toll to 32,476, and they said at least 10,000 others were still buried and presumed dead. Authorities said they were taking measures to prevent the spread of disease through contaminated water.
In a bit of good news, the threat of flooding in several areas appeared to lessen Sunday after three rivers clogged by landslides flowed over the blockages without complication, according to Xinhua.
On Saturday, thousands of people fled Beichuan and other towns. By Sunday the workers had resumed their search for victims in Beichuan, although the streets were mostly empty.
But fears of flooding remained elsewhere. Officials warned that heavy rain forecast for early in the week could weaken some of the 391 reservoirs that dot the region and threaten thousands of people downstream.
A large aftershock, followed by pounding rain, brought added misery early Sunday, but the sun and heat arrived with daybreak, giving rise to the stench of death.
Also on Sunday, officials from the China Seismological Bureau revised the earthquake’s magnitude to 8.0 from 7.9.
Overall, more than 21,000 people had been saved from the rubble, including 63 on Saturday, according to Xinhua. In an indication of the challenges to come, government officials said they were providing 4.8 million people with temporary shelter.
With 10 million people in need of food, Premier Wen Jiabao announced that Beijing would give quake survivors $42 a month for at least three months. The average monthly salary in rural China is about $50, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China.
During the three-day mourning period, due to start Monday, three minutes of silence will be observed on the first day. Flags across the country will be flown at half-staff.
The decision follows a flood of Internet postings in recent days that have called on the government to make a significant gesture to acknowledge the severity of the earthquake, China’s greatest natural disaster since 1976.
More than 200 search-and-rescue experts from neighboring countries have begun working alongside Chinese soldiers and emergency workers throughout Sichuan. Russia delivered three planeloads of supplies on Saturday, and the U.S. flew in 15,000 ready-to-eat meals, 655 tents and 2,600 lanterns.
But a 10-member group of British recovery experts was denied entry visas Sunday after waiting for four days in Hong Kong. The Britons from the International Rescue Corps were told that China was worried about their safety, said Julie Ryan, a spokeswoman for the group