China death toll continues to climb

China launches three-day mourning period

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With more bodies discovered, the confirmed death toll rose to 32,476, the State Council, China's cabinet, reported. The injured numbered more than 220,000.

Crematoriums working overtime

Many bodies lay by roadsides in body bags or wrapped in plastic sheeting, as authorities struggled to deal with the sheer number of corpses by digging burial pits and working crematoriums overtime.

The World Health Organization warned that shortages of clean water and warmer, humid weather in Sichuan province which bore the brunt of the earthquake were ripe for epidemics. It urged officials not to be distracted by the false belief that corpses were a health threat.

The Health Ministry said no major epidemics or other public health hazards had been reported so far, Xinhua said. Two field hospitals with 400 beds have been set up in isolated areas and medical staff have reached all townships affected by the quake, Xinhua said.

The three-day mourning period starting Monday was the most extensive one the government has ordered since the death 11 years ago of communist patriarch Deng Xiaoping, the architect of the free-market reforms that have brought many Chinese from poverty to moderate prosperity in a generation.

Officials initially resisted changing the relay, which corporate sponsors have paid millions of dollars to fund, though some of the pomp was toned down in recent days. Organizers say the relay will resume in Sichuan next month.

Responding to concerns about nuclear sites in the quake zone, a Chinese military spokesman, air force Maj. Gen. Ma Jian, told reporters Sunday that all nuclear facilities jolted by the quake were confirmed safe.

Though Ma did not elaborate, China has a research reactor, two nuclear fuel production sites and two atomic weapons sites within 90 miles of the quake's epicenter, according to the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety.

Flood threats from rivers blocked by landslides from the quake appeared to have eased after three waterways near the epicenter overflowed with no problems, Xinhua said. County officials diverted released water as a precaution.

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