Quake homeless struggle to survive

Relief workers in China are facing a daunting task to get food and shelter to the five million left homeless by Sichuan's earthquake.

Doctors are also struggling to treat the tens of thousands of people still in hospital, while engineers begin the momentous task of rebuilding the ravaged infrastructure.

But some funds are in place for the work, with donations from home and abroad reaching more than £3 billion.

Tent cities and rows of pre-fabricated houses are going up all over the area, but the Health Ministry said it can guarantee there will be no epidemics.

The quake in the southwestern province of Sichuan has killed 69,107 people and displaced more than 15 million, according to official figures. The death toll is likely to rise significantly with 18,230 still listed as missing.

A disproportionate number of schools collapsed in the quake, killing more than 9,000 students and teachers, according to the latests figures. Many surviving students have had to study in makeshift classrooms in tents.

Meanwhile, China's largest "quake lake" is not expected to start draining until Thursday due to a lack of rain, the government has said.

Landslides caused by the May 12 quake have blocked the flow of rivers, forming more than 30 unstable "quake lakes" that threaten hundreds of thousands of people downstream.

Hundreds of troops working around the clock to defuse the threat of the largest lake, Tangjiashan, had retreated to safe areas after opening a giant sluice to drain the water once it rises about four more metres (just over 13 ft).

"The floodwaters may not overflow to reach the sluice until the morning of June 5," the newspaper quoted experts as saying.

Some 210,000 residents downstream on the Jianjiang River have been evacuated to higher ground according to a contingency plan that foresees one third of the dam bursting.

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