“The focus of relief work is shifting from saving lives to rehabilitating victims,” Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told reporters yesterday.
The change in emphasis followed meetings of the country’s senior Communist Party leadership, including President Hu Jintao. It is an acknowledgment that rescuers are unlikely to find additional survivors of the May 12 quake, which Premier Wen Jiabao said today had caused at least 60,000 deaths and possibly as many as 80,000. Nearly 25,000 people remain missing.
Wang appealed to countries to donate 3.3 million tents urgently needed to shelter those who lost homes in the quake, a figure that exceeds 5 million people. Hu visited two tent manufacturers in the area to urge them to produce as many as possible.
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