The Ministry of Civil Affairs said yesterday evening that 6,300 tents had arrived at Ruichang and Jiujiang, near the epicenter of Saturday's earthquake in Jiangxi Province, as hundreds of thousands of wary residents continued to stay in the open.

Liu Yongfa, a ministry official in charge of the response to the disaster, said 1,500 more were on their way from the neighboring province of Hubei.

According to today's China Daily, in hardest-hit Ruichang more than 420,000 people had left their homes because of sporadic aftershocks; and most were accommodated in tents pitched in open spaces or on wide streets.

Zhang Xiao, a resident whose two-storey house was damaged, had to share a tent with his neighbors.

"Children and the elderly get priority," Zhang told China Daily, as local government officials said more tents were needed.

Hundreds of patients were being treated in tents because hospital buildings had suffered structural damage, said the paper, and residents had also received instant noodles, cakes, milk and bottled mineral water.

"A lot of patients have been moved from dangerous buildings to makeshift structures in the open square," said Wang Jian, a doctor at Ruichang Hospital of Chinese Medicine, which is treating about 100 injured and where eight babies have been delivered safely in the last two days.

The earthquake, measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale, rocked Ruichang and Jiujiang on Saturday morning, killing at least 15 and injuring around 400. Thousands of houses collapsed or were badly damaged.

Tremors were also felt in Hubei, where one was killed and nearly 100 injured, and in Anhui Province, where dozens of homes were damaged.

Jiangxi Civil Affairs Bureau said yesterday that around 18,000 buildings in Ruichang and Jiujiang had collapsed and 150,000 had been damaged, with direct economic losses estimated at 1 billion yuan (US$123 million).

(China.org.cn, China Daily November 29, 2005)