Powerful aftershock rocks China

The fresh devastation came after a magnitude 6.0 aftershock - among the most powerful recorded since the initial May 12 quake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The China National Seismic Network said the aftershock was the strongest of dozens in the nearly two weeks after the disaster.

The new tremor killed one person and injured more than 400, 28 seriously, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Some 71,000 homes that had survived the original quake were leveled, and another 200,000 were in danger of collapse from the aftershock that caused office towers to sway in Beijing, 800 miles away.

Before the aftershock, the Cabinet said the confirmed death toll from the disaster had risen to 62,664, with another 23,775 people missing. Premier Wen Jiabao has warned the number of dead could surpass 80,000.

A mudslide caused by the aftershock blocked a road, but Xinhua said no serious landslides were reported.

Previous landslides loosened by the quake jammed rivers across the disaster area, creating 35 new lakes that placed 700,000 survivors in jeopardy of floods, Vice Minister of Water Resources E Jingping told reporters in Beijing.

The aftershock was felt in Chengdu, one of the largest cities in the Sichuan province and about 150 miles (240 km) from the epicenter of the aftershock. A CNN employee, on the 24th floor of a highrise hotel, reported that the building swayed.

On Saturday, when China's Premier Wen Jiabao gave United Nation Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon a dramatic look at the damage, a strong aftershock shook the town they were in.

At the Sunday news conference, a civil affairs ministry official said rescue workers have pulled alive 6,537 people from the rubble of the May 12 earthquake.

The earthquake has left more than 5,000 children without their parents and more than 4,000 elderly without caregivers, China's state-run news agency said Sunday.

A water ministry official said at the same conference that 69 dams are in danger of bursting in Sichuan province.

Since the quake struck, workers have made several dramatic rescues. But the numbers have dwindled in recent days as time has passed. And continued rain in the coming days threatened to make relief efforts more difficult.

On Friday, rescue workers pulled an 80-year-old paraplegic man from the rubble of his home on Friday, 11 days after the quake, state media reported Sunday.

The man, Xiao Zhihu, had been trapped for nearly 266 hours.