Rescuers pulled four people alive from the earthquake debris in southwest China's Sichuan Province on Saturday, about five days after the tremor.
The 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Wenchuan County, about 159 km northwest of Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu, at 2:28 p.m. on Monday.
The Information Office of the State Council put the quake death toll at 28,881 nationwide as of 2 p.m. Saturday. In Sichuan alone, more than 28,300 died, and at least 10,600 people remain buried, said Sichuan Province Vice Governor Li Chengyun.
At about 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, a 52-year-old man, Ji Zhongshan, was pulled from a collapsed building of a former five-story hotel in Beichuan county, about 160 km northeast of the epicenter.
"Actually, we heard his feeble voice crying for help from the debris Thursday morning, and we spent several hours locating his position," said Yang Bobi, a rescuer and also a PLA (People's Liberation Army) soldier.
"But we met tremendous difficulties while removing the concrete wreckage. A pretty little mistake would kill Ji. It took three days for 168 soldiers to rescue him," he said.
Doctors said Ji, a staff member of an investment company from eastern Shandong Province, suffered severe injuries in the chest. After an emergency operation Saturday afternoon, he was in stable condition and would recover gradually, doctors said.
In Yingxiu Township, in the epicenter county of Wenchuan, Jiang Yuhang, a highway administration employee, was extricated at about 5:12 p.m. after being trapped more than 120 hours in the rubble of his home.
The 20-year-old was on night shift and was sleeping when the earthquake struck on Monday afternoon.
Rescuers heard his voice at 8 a.m. on Saturday, and spent more than nine hours removing piles of debris.
"I was expecting to see my son's body, I never expected to see him alive," said Jiang's mother Long Jinyu, who arrived in Yingxiuabout 2 p.m. on Saturday from Guizhou Province.
Chen Fei, who led the rescue operation, said they had detected at least two other buried who were alive.
In a separate rescue, a 31-year-old woman named Bian Gangfen was rescued around 6:18 p.m. on Saturday in the Yinghua Township, Shifang City, after spending about 124 hours under the rubble of a chemical factory.
A group of fire-fighters from central China's Henan Province discovered Bian on Friday night. They used life detection equipment to check on her every few hours during the rescue.
Bian was conscious when they carried her out and said "Thank you" to the people around her. Doctors said she had suffered back injuries and took her to a local hospital.
Also in Shifang, Zhou Zhi, 33, was pulled alive at about 6 p.m. from the rubble of a workshop above ground at the Jinhe Mine in Hongbai Township.
In the quake-hit areas, rescue forces, including those from Russia, Singapore, Japan and the Republic of Korea, are searching for buried survivors five days after the powerful earthquake.
Into the fifth day since the devastating earthquake, China's worst in more than 30 years, rescuers, including more than 130,000 troops, were still struggling to pull possible survivors from debris of collapsed houses, schools and factories.
Source: Xinhua
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