China will help traumatized survivors with psychological intervention after a massive quake jolted southwest China's Sichuan Province, an official said on Thursday.

Gao Qiang, deputy minister of health said "We have noticed some survivors were traumatized for losing their family members and relatives, and some children were scared during the quake."

Official figures showed a 7.8-magnitude earthquake had claimed 19,500 as of 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

"The impact of earthquake might affect survivors for a long time," he said. "Some people might not show any symptoms of psychological problems in the short term, but might suffer from mental disorder in the long term."

"Besides normal medical care given to injured people, we will give psychological intervention to these survivors," he said.

Qualified psychologists will join the medical staff teams sent to the quake-hit regions, he said.

"When they arrived at the disaster-hit regions, they will give suitable psychological intervention to patients," he said.

"Psychological intervention is a long term task," he said.

As of 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, 64,040 victims had been hospitalized in Sichuan, among them 12,587 patients were severely injured.

By now, 5,000 medical staff have joined rescue efforts, ministry statistics showed.

(Xinhua News Agency May 15, 2008)