International

Press, 3 August 1976, Page 8

International

NZPA-Reuter Peking; , I Earth tremors have 1 continued to rock the Tangshan area east of | Peking during the pre-! vious 48 hour’s, an offi-i cial Chinese spokesman said yesterday.

The spokesman said that, in the previous two days there had been 110 tremors of more than four degrees on the Richter scale, and 15 tremors of more than five degrees. They were registered on Saturday and Sunday until 6 p.m. The spokesman said that the tremors were expected to continue. Tangshan was close to the epicentre of the devastating earthquake last Wednesday that caused heavy losses and damage in the Hopei province of northeast China. United Press International said it had been announced that members of a relief and rescue force had been killed by continuing after-shocks from the disastrous earthquake.

It was the continuing after-shocks, which officials said were moving closer and closer to Peking, that led to a Chinese Government request that diplomats’ dependants and other non-essential personnel leave Peking.

The Communist Party newspaper, “People’s Daily,” disclosed the death of some relief workers as part of an editorial.

“Some workers and poor and lower-middle peasants have laid down their lives to rescue their class brothers” the editorial said, calling the earthquake a “grave natural calamity” several times. “Large numbers of commanders and fighters of the People's Liberation Army have rushed to the seriously afflicted places to do rescue and relief work despite the great danger. Some medical workers, regardless of their own serious wounds, have worked with perseverance to rescue the injured.”

NZPA-Reuter said that earlier, the New China News

Agency had issued a report painting a relatively optimistic picture of the state of rescue and relief operations in Tangshan.

".Many people in the city are now out of danger,” it said, adding that electricity and water supplies and communications links were being restored.

Diplomats in Peking could not understand how major reconstruction work could I have been carried out in the I face of the earthquake’s continuing after-shocks.

The United States Geological Survey in Golden, ! Colorado said it had (recorded the main earthquake at 8.2 on the Richter scale — the most powerful in the world for 12 years — and an after shock of 7.9.

A spokesman said that any Chinese tremors would have [to 'exceed 5.5 Richter to j register at Golden. < Because of the predictions lof a shock hitting Peking, ■most embassies have been making arrangements to [evacuate foreigners and to 'reduce the size of their staffs.

The New China News • Agency report said the “overIwhelming majority” of the! miners underground at; Tangshan’s large Kailuan coal mine had survived the ibig earthquake. There had been fears that i many miners — an estimated i 15,000 would be underground at any one time — would be entombed by the earthquake. The agency said “The railways, highways, water, and electricity supplies and telecommunications damaged by the earthquake are being restored step by step.” Several thousand medical workers had rushed to Tangshan to help the victims, and relief work was under way satisfactorily, it said. Troops of the People’s Liberation Army had [assumed the brunt of the (work and had “devised 101 'ways to rescue every injured person.” the report said. “The commanders and fightlers chose to work wherever the work was heavier and 'the danger greater.”