RESCUERS pulled out dozens of survivors yesterday as the death toll from a 6.5-magnitude earthquake in southwest China’s Yunnan Province reached 398 with three missing, officials said.

As of 2pm, the strong quake had affected 1.08 million people in Zhaotong City and Qujing City, with 1,801 injured and about 230,000 having to be evacuated as an emergency, according to the Yunnan Civil Affairs Department.

Nearly 80,000 rooms in 25,500 households had collapsed in the quake and 124,000 rooms in 39,200 households were seriously damaged, the department said.

The deaths include 319 in Ludian County, 66 in Qiaojia County, one in Zhaoyang District and 12 in Huize County. Three people are missing in Qiaojia.

Rescuers are racing against time to save lives after the quake, which struck at 4:30pm on Sunday with a depth of 12 kilometers.

The epicenter is in Longtoushan Township, Ludian County.

Rescuers used their hands to dig out a 5-year-old boy buried in debris in Guangming village in Longtoushan Township yesterday morning.

The child had injuries to his legs and received immediate medical treatment.

“We found and rescued a woman and a man, both in their 40s in Longtoushan at 9:20am and 10:25am respectively,” said Li Jin, a paramilitary officer.

Rescuers offered counseling and water to the seriously injured woman and man during the rescue process.

“The changing weather and steep valleys are causing great difficulties in the rescue operation,” said Zhang Yong, head of the Blue Sky Rescue Team, whose 45 members arrived at Longtoushan on Sunday night.

“There are many volunteer rescuers in the area but professional rescue forces are still needed,” Zhang said.

Yunnan has sent 7,000 rescuers, including 5,000 soldiers, police officers and firefighters, to Zhaotong and Qujing.

More than 4,000 servicemen and paramilitary reserve forces in the Chengdu Military Area Command are taking part in the rescue work.

Another 300 servicemen from the command have been mobilized to deliver relief materials and add their weight to the rescue effort.

Over 600 of the command’s medical workers are treating the injured.

The command has also sent six helicopters to the quake zone.

Quake-triggered landslides have blocked roads to the worst-hit areas, making it difficult to transport injured residents and relief materials, rescuers said.

Their work has been hampered by continuous downpours, which have disrupted traffic, lowered temperatures in the remote area, and made food and medicine shortages even more critical.

Heavy rain is forecast in Ludian over the next few days, and temperatures could drop to 17 degrees Celsius at night.

Late on Sunday night, President Xi Jinping ordered authorities to give top priority to saving lives and minimizing casualties.

Premier Li Keqiang repeated the plea yesterday as he visited Longtoushan township, the epicenter, saying no effort must be spared to save lives in the relief work.

As the road to the epicenter is under restoration, Li walked about 5 kilometers from Longtoushan along rocky paths to Longquan, the most severely hit village in the quake zone.

He checked the ruins of a house, urging rescuers to race to save people buried under the debris, as well as to restore roads and communications.

“Saving one more person means saving the happiness of a whole family,” Li told soldiers. “Saving lives is the top priority. Don’t stop! Spare no effort!”

As some officials told Li that the quake-hit area is short of food and other supplies as roads have been cut off, the premier ordered air-drops of food and medicine, and told authorities to ensure people have food and clean water.

As of yesterday morning, 1,363 people had received medical treatment in the quake-hit areas, said the provincial health department. Four of the injured had died despite doctors’ efforts.

Meanwhile, rescuers have evacuated residents threatened by a lake which was formed by the quake in Jiangbian Village, Zhixiang Township of Huize County. It had inundated 20 houses.

Journalists in Ludian County seat saw drenched survivors sitting along muddy roads waiting for food and medication. Some half-naked survivors were trembling in the rain.

Medical workers in Ludian’s Longquan Village said they have severe shortages of medicine and that local conditions were too poor to perform operations on the severely injured.

“Critically injured patients keep coming, but we are unable to carry out operations for many of them,” one of the doctors working at a makeshift tent in the village said. “It is impossible to deal with severe injuries such as brain hemorrhages in such conditions.”

The quake is the strongest to hit Yunnan in 14 years, according to Zhang Junwei, an official with the Yunnan Earthquake Administration.

Ludian has a population of 400,000, or a density of 265 people per square kilometer, more than double Yunnan’s average of 110, said Zhang.

Houses, mostly made of wood, bricks and concrete, were too fragile to resist the quake. All these factors contributed to the heavy casualties, he said.

As of 3pm yesterday, 460 aftershocks had been recorded in the quake-hit region, including four measuring between 4.0 and 4.9 magnitude, said Li Fei, spokesman for the Yunnan Earthquake Administration.

Li warned that strong aftershocks may occur and secondary disasters such as landslides were possible during the rainy season.

“The blocked roads and the downpours have made some disaster areas inaccessible for heavy relief vehicles,” said Liu Jianhua, Party secretary of the Party’s Zhaotong committee.

Liu said they were experiencing a severe shortage of professional rescue teams and facilities.

Traffic on a main road linking Longtoushan and the county seat eased yesterday morning after hours of gridlock following the quake.

Large numbers of the injured are being transferred to the county’s hospital via the road by ambulance.

Officials with Yunnan’s civil affairs department said a large number of tents, cotton quilts and fold-out beds had been stored in Zhaotong and Ludian, but there have been problems getting to the quake-hit areas.