Summary
22 April 2013
China is continuing a massive rescue operation in Sichuan province, with thousands of workers, after a powerful earthquake on Saturday.
Reporter:
John Sudworth
Sichuan province has a history of deadly earthquakes
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Report
Rescue teams had already reached the remote villages in mountainous Baoxing County on foot, but landslides were blocking access to aid trucks and preventing some of the casualties from being brought out.
Now state media is reporting that a path has been cleared, although, in heavy fog, and with regular aftershocks, the going is slow.
Even in the more accessible areas of neighbouring Lushan county the aid effort has been hampered by congestion on the single road in, and some of those who've been made homeless are complaining that they've not yet received food or water.
Although on the same fault line, this earthquake was much less powerful than the one that struck Sichuan Province in 2008, and the death toll is not expected to rise significantly.
Once again though it is the poor who have borne the brunt of the disaster, with the biggest killer not the earthquake itself, but poorly constructed houses.
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Vocabulary
- mountainous
having a lot of mountains
- on foot
by walking (without using transport or vehicles)
- landslides
falls of rocks and earth down a mountain or slope
- casualties
people who have been injured or killed in an accident or war
- state media
media organisations controlled by the government
- aftershocks
small earthquakes that follow a bigger one
- the going is slow
progress is difficult or slow
- hampered
made difficult
- fault line
a long, deep crack in the Earth's surface
- death toll
the number of people who died because of an event
- borne the brunt of
suffered the main effects of
