Rescuers struggle to help survivors

Rescue workers are struggling to help survivors of China's devastating earthquake.About 130,000 troops are assisting the search and rescue effort and more than 12.5 tonnes of relief goods have been air-dropped and scores of helicopters are flying in rescuers and aid.The Foreign Ministry said quilts, tents, food, satellite phones, medicine and excavators were needed most.Towns and villages across Sichuan province have been flattened and it is feared the death toll could top 50,000.More than 20,000 have already been confirmed dead as a result of the 7.9-magnitude quake, and tens of thousands more remain buried in rubble in areas of the worst-hit province of Sichuan.In some villages near the badly hit area of Beichuan, angry residents complained they had had little to eat and were forced to drink contaminated water.Many are sleeping outside or in makeshift shelters where the lack of water and blocked toilets has raised fears of outbreaks of diarrhoea and other infectious disease.Meanwhile, 19 British tourists who have been found safe and well after being caught up in the earthquake have been describing their ordeal.Diane Atkins, 63, from Portchester, Hampshire, who was evacuated with her 64-year-old husband David, said: "We looked around and everybody was running and rocks were falling and then we looked up and the mountain just seemed to explode.""We thought we were going to be buried alive. I really thought we were going to die."Fellow traveller Barry Jackson said: "Suddenly we had this horrendous noise which was just - you can't describe what it's like, it's just a huge, huge noise and the land shaking underneath you and the first thing that we all thought to do was to run."

ITN | May 16, 2008