CHENGDU, CHINA — As health concerns intensified and aid poured in from across China and the world, Beijing on Sunday began three days of mourning to commemorate the likely 50,000 deaths from the massive earthquake in Sichuan province.
The toll continued to rise, with a report today by the official New China News Agency that more than 200 relief workers had been buried by mud. Details were not immediately available.
This afternoon, exactly one week after the magnitude 7.9 earthquake destroyed so many lives and communities, China asked its 1.2 billion people to observe three minutes of silence before sounding their car, truck, train, ship and air-raid horns in a collective cry of grief.
China also said it would order all flags to be flown at half staff and would suspend for three days the Olympic torch relay, which is currently on a marathon domestic tour. In recent days, runners have started with a moment's silence and solicited donations along the route.
China's missions around the world also were advised to observe the tributes and to offer condolence books for those who wished to express their sympathies.
For the mourning period, the State Council, or Cabinet, also ordered all websites to remove entertainment and game sections and redirect users to pages dedicated to victim commemoration.
On Sunday, China raised the death toll to 32,476 in what has become a daily grim ritual of moving 3,000 to 4,000 from the missing column to the dead column.
Two women were reportedly rescued from a collapsed building at a coal mine today. Three more people were reportedly pulled alive from the rubble Sunday. But the momentum was inexorably shifting from finding the missing to caring for the injured, ensuring that epidemics don't break out and clearing roads.
The road to hard-hit Beichuan was filled with hundreds of army, government and private relief vehicles loaded with rice, instant noodles, bottled water and tents. "Let's unite with one heart to fight this natural disaster," said a sign on a large blue relief truck.
The outpouring of donations created a logistical nightmare as soldiers worked to clear a large area of underbrush on the east side of the road just outside the battered city to store thousands of boxes and pallets, which were unprotected from rain. Periodically, traffic on the single lane dead-end road stopped in a tangle of heavy equipment, cargo and military vehicles.
