The State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said on Thursday that 47,000 people are now at risk owing to earthquake damage to dams at 22 reservoirs in southwest China's Yunnan Province.

Already 126,000 people have been left homeless in Ludian and Zhaoyang counties by Tuesday's magnitude 5.6 earthquake. Nearly 600 were injured and four killed.

Local official said the area is in urgent need of relief funds, materials and medicine. Some hospitals were damaged and even those that are intact are overwhelmed with the injured, more than 200 of whom are in serious condition.

Zhaotong Mayor Deng Xianpei said antibiotics and disinfectants are scarce.

Deng said the city had to find shelter for 126,000 people after the quake as 18,556 houses had collapsed.

More than 6,050 tents have already arrived, but the county is still waiting for funds for to resettle the victims, said Deng.

The Red Cross office in Beijing reportedly delivered 8,000 tents to the devastated area, saying that that was only enough for about half of the people whose homes had been destroyed.

Estimates put the number of people who will have to rely on relief food supplies over the next eight months at 130,000, for a total of 15.6 million kilograms of grain.

Ludian, which is one of China's poorest counties, also needs funds to aid the devastated area over the longer term. The quake almost entirely wiped out the flue-cured tobacco industry, the backbone of the region.

Deng predicted that the county might need 80 million yuan (US$9.6 million) for its reconstruction, adding that the transport, communications and reservoirs have been severely damaged in the three recent quakes.

The county has a population of 370,000, and the average income of local farmers was only 1,000 yuan (US$120) last year, an amount equal to one month's average school fees in Beijing.

Earthquakes measuring 5.1 and 5.0 on the Richter scale hit the county on November 15 and 26, 2003. Four people were killed and 120 injured in the two previous quakes.

Wu Xiaoqiong, a duty officer at Ludian's earthquake monitoring station, said 146 aftershocks had been recorded since the quake, including a tremor measuring 3.9 on the Richter scale early Wednesday.

The aftershocks were declining in strength and it was not clear whether they had caused any additional damage, Wu said.

The relatively low death toll might be the result of the timing of the quake, which struck at 6:26 PM, before many families went to bed.

President Hu Jintao and Vice Premier Hui Liangyu have personally told the local government to do a good job in rescue and relief.

A relief team headed by civil affairs Vice Minister Yang Yanyin arrived at the stricken area on Wednesday afternoon. The ministry has allocated 4,000 tents to the affected areas.

The ministries of finance and civil affairs have also earmarked 12 million yuan (US$1.4 million) in emergency relief to Ludian to resettle residents, treat the injured and provide temporary shelters.

(Xinhua News Agency contributed to this story.)

(China Daily, China.org.cn August 13, 2004)