Earthquake survivors cook on a makeshift stove in front of their demolished homes
On April 14th, residents of China’s remote Yushu County, located on the Tibetan plateau, were awoken by a magnitude 6.9 earthquake. In the sparsely populated villages and the larger town of Gyegu, thousands of wood-earth buildings collapsed and many larger structured heavily damaged or destroyed. The region is difficult to reach for the response teams of the Chinese government outside aid groups – lying at an elevation of 3,700m (12,000 ft) and connected by few roads, most of which were damaged in the quake. Chinese state media now says the death toll has risen to 1,144. Rescuers continue to search for survivors as homeless residents work to recover what they can and set up shelter from the freezing overnight temperatures. (35 photos)
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A rescuer searches for survivors at a collapsed building in Yushu County
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Rescuers search for survivors in the rubble of quake demolished building
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Rescuers carry a 13-year-old Tibetan girl, who had been buried in the ruins of a collapsed hotel for more than 50 hours after a strong earthquake
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The rubble of a collapsed building, seen on April 15, 2010, after a 6.9-magnitude earthquake
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Tibetan monks carry a body they dug out from the debris of a collapsed hotel building
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A general view of a town square shows search and rescue operations underway in Gyegu, Yushu County
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This Thursday, April 15, 2010 satellite image provided by DigitalGlobe shows part of Yushu, China, only one day after it was struck by a devastating earthquake. Relief workers estimate that 70 percent to 90 percent of the town’s wood-and-mud houses collapsed when the earthquakes hit.
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Rope and bandages hold together a medics quake-damaged vehicle as he drives through a makeshift hospital at the Yushu Sports Stadium
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A woman, front, rests near her collapsed house while a rescuer leads a dog to search for a missing person
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Quake survivor Sonammon, 52, who lost ten members of her family from the quake gestures in prayer while holding onto her nephew
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Rescuers search students at a school collapsed after an earthquake
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A Tibetan monk walks on the rubble
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The hand of a Tibetan child killed by the earthquake is seen amongst blankets and clothing used as makeshift shrouds for the bodies of earthquake victims
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A Tibetan monk stands beside hundreds of dead bodies wrapped in cloth at Gyegu Monastery in the earthquake-hit town of Gyegu
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Monks carry bodies, wrapped in cloth, onto a truck for Tibetan burial
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In this photo provided by China’s Xinhua News Agency, two people search for useful goods on debris of their destroyed house
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Chinese paramilitary policemen look for survivors under the debris of collapsed houses
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Injured earthquake survivors wait to board a flight to a safe place for medical treatment, at the Yushu airport
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Medical staff attend to an injured earthquake victim at a hospital after a group of 24 severely injured earthquake survivors were evacuated to Lanzhou, in northwest China’s Gansu province
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Ambulances are loaded to trailers to transport to Yushu county
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A Tibetan man makes phone calls to his relatives at his destroyed house after an earthquake in Yushu
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A dog sleeps near the Tibetan Buddhist Gyegu Monastery which overlooks the surrounding area. Many bodies have been brought to the monastery for cremation after the recent quake
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Ethnic Tibetans and local residents unload tents from a truck in the earthquake-hit town
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A damaged car rests beneath the rubble of a quake-demolished building
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A Tibetan woman is comforted by her friends after rescuers pulled the body of her son from the rubble of a school that had collapsed
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An injured Tibetan is carried by his relatives and residents to a bus which will take him to a safe place for medical treatment in the town
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Angxiuduojie, 31, an ethnic Tibetan man, shows journalists where he and his family escaped from his collapsed house during the earthquake
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A nine-month-old child injured from the earthquake waits to board a flight to Xining city
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Tibetans pull down a wall where they believe survivors may be buried amid the debris of a collapsed hotel building
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Rescuers search for survivors in the rubble of quake-demolished building
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The bodies of an ethnic Tibetan woman and her daughter are seen inside a cage, before a traditional burial, amid the debris of collapsed house
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A family rest in their courtyard near collapsed houses
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A girl reads a book outside her makeshift tent amid the rubble of a quake-demolished building
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A woman collects wood in the debris of collapsed houses
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