China: Quake death toll could go over 80,000

Rescuers are trying to get to 24 coal miners who have been trapped.

YINGXIU, China (AP) — China warned Saturday that the death toll from a massive earthquake two weeks ago could take a major leap and pass 80,000, suggesting the government may be giving up hope of finding more survivors.

But rescuers rushed anyway to reach 24 coal miners who officials said were trapped in three mines by the disaster, though it was not known if the miners were alive.

“We have had the miracle in the past that a miner was found alive after being trapped underground for 21 days,” Wang Dexue, the deputy chief of the government’s work safety department, told a news conference in Beijing. “We are carrying out rescue work on the assumption that they are still alive. We absolutely will not give up.”

Wang gave no further details of the trapped miners. China’s mines are the world’s deadliest, with explosions, cave-ins and floods killing nearly 3,800 people last year.

Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon made a brief visit Saturday to one of the hardest-hit towns, Yingxiu — a helicopter ride that offered a rare bird’s-eye views of the destruction wrought by the 7.9-magnitude quake May 12.

The mountains in central Sichuan province showed huge tracks of naked earth from landslides. Layers of mud covered fields. Rivers churned brown. Yingxiu itself was largely piles of rubble, and the buildings left standing had caved in, giving the surreal impression that they had melted.

The State Council, China’s Cabinet, said Saturday the latest confirmed death toll for the quake — China’s biggest disaster in three decades — was 60,560, with 26,221 people still missing.

Premier Wen Jiabao, on a return visit to the quake zone to accompany Ban, warned the toll could go much higher.

“It may further climb to a level of 70,000, 80,000 or more,” Wen said, standing amid the rubble in Yingxiu.

About 15 minutes before Wen started talking, yet another minor aftershock rumbled.

Ban, who came to China directly from cyclone-stricken Myanmar, promised the U.N. would help with reconstruction and that it was waiting for China’s assessment of what was needed.

The secretary-general left China later Saturday and was to attend an aid donors conference in Myanmar for cyclone victims today.

About 4,800 of Yingxiu’s 18,000 people were killed in the quake, a military officer said during a tour.

Underscoring doubts that more survivors would be found, Wen said the government’s focus had shifted from rescue to rebuilding.

Meanwhile, some 10,000 medical workers have been dispatched to prevent disease outbreaks.

Also Saturday, eight pandas reached Beijing safely after a long journey from their damaged reserve near the quake’s epicenter. The pandas will spend the next six months at the Beijing Zoo on a special Olympics visit that was planned long before the quake.\