A 46-year-old survivor from Monday's 7.8-magnitude earthquake in southwest China had lived on cigarettes, paper napkins and his urine when he was buried in the rubble?for four days.
Peng Zhijun, who was pulled out of debris alive Friday afternoon in Beichuan county of Sichuan Province, was still sober-minded almost 100 hours after the quake.
Doctors said he suffered bone fractures in the left arm and slight injuries in the legs, but the other parts of his body were basically in good condition.
"Natural disasters cannot be avoided. I had to save myself," Peng told reporters Friday evening while lying on a stretcher at the Mianyang City Center Hospital.
He recalled that he was buried in a collapsed building near a pharmaceutical company in Beichuan Monday afternoon when the earthquake occurred, and he could not move freely under the pressure of debris, except his right arm.
"I first untied my girdle, and used it to tie my injured left arm to my head so as to relive pain," he said. "Then, I started thinking about how to eat and drink."
"I searched all over by pockets and only found half a pack of cigarettes and a few pieces of paper napkins," he said. "I broke the cigarettes into pieces and ate the powder. After the cigarettes were eaten up, I turned to the paper napkins."
"Besides, I had to drink my urine," he said. "I managed to take off one of my shoes and used it to collect my urine."
Peng said that he had tried many times to arouse rescuers' attention by hitting the a collapsed wall with his right arm in the past days but failed. Almost 100 hours passed, he was finally found by rescuers.
"They were very excited to see me still alive, so was I, and I cried loudly," he said.
Peng recalled that more than 10 people had been buried beside him in the rubble. "At the very beginning, they were all alive. But unfortunately, they died one after another."
"I had encouraged some of them to drink their urine. But they did not listen."
Three other survivors, including two men and a woman, were saved Friday afternoon along with Peng. They had done what Peng told them to do.
"So long as you persist in your belief, you can have one more minute for survival and one more chance of being rescued," he said.
Miracles expected
Beichuan, a county of about 160,000 people, is one of the worst-hit region, with 80 percent of the buildings collapsed and at least 7,000 lives lost.
Into the fourth day after the earthquake, the government vowed not to abandon the search for survivors.
"Where there is a beam of hope, we will spare no efforts to save the trapped," said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in his work tour at the quake-hit areas.
Actually, rescuers could still detect signs of life in the rubble and they pulled 33 survivors from collapsed buildings in Beichuan on Friday, bringing the total number of people saved alive in the county to 13,595.
A 72-year-old woman named Deng Zhongqun was found by soldiers after being stranded at her badly damaged hillside house. She had been injured by a falling girder and had eaten only nuts over the past four days.
"Thank goodness for the soldiers. I only weigh 65 kilograms and they carried me by turns on their backs, walking miles to reach the medical station," said Deng.
Also Friday, a 104-year-old woman in Maoxian County was successfully rescued. The elder was in critical condition due to extreme panic after the quake.
People's Liberation Army soldiers trekked six hours to reach the elder's home in mountainous Gaochuan Town and managed to carry her to an ambulance waiting at the mountain foot.
The woman restored consciousness after emergency treatment and then was sent to a hospital 50 km away for further treatment.
Rescuers said they could still hear weak yelling for help from under the collapsed building, and are expecting more miracles.
The death toll in Sichuan alone had exceeded 21,500 while 14,000 others remained buried as of 4 p.m. Friday, vice provincial governor Li Chengyun said at a press conference.
He said that 159,000 people were injured in the massive earthquake and 4.8 million people had been relocated.
In addition to the deaths in Sichuan, 364 were killed in Gansu Province, 109 in Shaanxi Province, 15 in Chongqing Municipality, two in Henan Province, one in Yunnan Province and one in Hubei Province.
(Xinhua News Agency May 17, 2008)