China quake dead cremated on mountain
JIEGU, China — Monks wearing face masks set ablaze piles of the blanket-wrapped bodies of China's earthquake victims on a mountaintop Saturday, as necessity forced local Tibetans to break with the tradition of leaving their dead out for vultures.
Hundreds of villagers sat on the hillside, watching as the flames leapt skyward, while monks chanted and prayed for the dead.
The mass cremation marked the start of the community's recovery even as rescue workers continued to pick through rubble — and found at least one survivor — in a remote corner of western China.
The death toll from Wednesday's quake rose to 1,339, officials told reporters at a briefing Saturday afternoon, with 332 still missing. Officials said 11,849 were injured, including 1,297 seriously.
Moved by the disaster in the overwhelmingly Tibetan area, the Dalai Lama said Saturday he would like to visit the site. The Tibetan spiritual leader fled Tibet after a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule and has never returned.
"To fulfill the wishes of many of the people there, I am eager to go there myself to offer them comfort," the Dalai Lama said in the Indian hill town that is home to the Tibetan government-in-exile.
There was no immediate comment from China's government. It has accused the Dalai Lama of fomenting separatism in Tibetan areas, making it very unlikely that he would be allowed to visit.
The Dalai Lama also commended Chinese officials, especially Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, for their quick response to the earthquake.
Tibetans in the region traditionally perform "sky burials," in which bodies are chopped into pieces and left on a platform to be devoured by vultures. But a monk, Zewang Jimei, said the large number of corpses made that impossible.
"There are not enough vultures for all these bodies, so the bodies will become very dirty and it is not good for the souls to rest in peace," Zewang said. "Therefore, we think the mass cremation is the best funeral for all these earthquake victims."
Monks at the cremation were not able to give an exact number of bodies burned.
In town, rescue workers pulled out a single survivor from a ruined hotel, China Central television reported.
Relief goods continued to arrive along the single, traffic-clogged main road from the Qinghai provincial capital, 12 hours away.
However, Vice Transport Minister Gao Hongfeng told reporters in Beijing that it may rain and snow in the next few days, making it more difficult to transport the injured out and relief goods in.
Police said they have increased security at areas where relief supplies are being handed out after reports of fighting among survivors for aid.
"We will severely attack the looting of disaster relief materials and the stealing of victims' property," provincial Deputy Police Chief Liu Tianhui told a news conference held in a tent in Jiegu on Saturday.
Liu said there were cases of looting right after the quake, but the situation had improved and "is stable now."
He said the biggest challenge is getting enough clean drinking water and food for the estimated 100,000 people affected by the earthquake.
