China Quake Survivors Rescued as Rain Threatens Millions

The rescue of 40 half-starved people from a remote village 16 days after China's earthquake provided a rare piece of good news on Thursday as rain threatened more misery for millions of survivors.

A military helicopter plucked the villagers from their quake-shattered mountain homes on Wednesday after some of them had survived on little more than rice and wild herbs, state press reported.

Their rescue was the latest in a string of extraordinary survival stories that have emerged from the horror of the May 12 quake in Sichuan province, which killed over 68,000 people and displaced more than 15 million others.

But the enormous scope of dealing with its aftermath remained the main focus on Thursday, as the danger of potentially devastating floods rose again with steady rain falling across the quake zone.

The most pressing priority was the draining of a so-called "quake lake," a massive body of water sitting above millions of people that was formed after the huge tremor triggered landslides and blocked a river.

Officials have warned rainfall would further swell the lake and, if it burst, flash floods would sweep across large tracts of Sichuan, bringing with it torrents of rubble from the quake.

Compounding the danger was the presence of about 5,000 tonnes of dangerous chemicals downstream from the lake at Tangjiashan, said Ma Ning, a top regional official with the nation's environmental protection bureau.

Efforts to move the materials, which included hydrochloric acid and were held at dozens of local companies, were to have begun Thursday, the Beijing News quoted Ma as saying.