CHENGDU -- A total of 62,161 people have been confirmed dead in the May 12 earthquake and another 347,401 people injured in southwest China's Sichuan Province alone as of 4:30 p.m. Sunday, a local official said.
So far, 83,988 people have been rescued from debris and more than 5.77 million have been given temporary shelter, said Hou Xiongfei, director of the Sichuan Provincial Information Office.
The province has recorded 8,231 aftershocks after the 8.0-magnitude earthquake on May 12, with the strongest measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale reported on Sunday afternoon, Hou said.
The latest aftershock jolted Qingchuan County, about 400 km northeast of the provincial capital Chengdu, at about 4:21 p.m., he said.
The China National Seismic Network has located the epicenter of the aftershock at 32.6 degrees north latitude and 105.4 degrees east longitude.
The strong aftershock was also felt in Chengdu, parts of neighboring provinces of Gansu and Shaanxi Province, and even Beijing, local residents said.
Also Sunday, about 1,600 armed police officers and People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers were hiking toward an expanding "quake lake" in Sichuan, hoping to blast away its landslide barrier before it bursts and causes a flood.
Earlier attempts to send military helicopters on the same mission were hampered by adverse weather and low visibility at the Tangjiashan lake site in Beichuan County, one of the hardest quake-hit areas.
"The rescuers have 10 kilograms of dynamite each and are expected to arrive at the site on Sunday night," a PLA spokesman told Xinhua.
The Tangjiashan quake lake, which is in danger of bursting as water builds up in it, is one of the more than 30 such lakes in rivers blocked by landslides from the earthquake and thousands of aftershocks.
The lake is 3.2 km upstream from the Beichuan County seat, from which thousands of survivors have been evacuated since Wednesday.
Its barrier is in danger of bursting as the water level rose by nearly 2 meters on Saturday to 723 meters, only 29 meters below the lowest part of the barrier, which measured 752 meters high.
In terms of the intensity and scope of destruction, the May 12 quake centered in Wenchuan County is believed to have surpassed the 7.8-magnitude quake in 1976 in Tangshan, northern Hebei Province, which claimed more than 240,000 lives.
A total of 62,664 people have perished in the tremors as of Sunday noon. Another 358,816 were injured and 23,775 remained missing, according to the Information Office of State Council, China's cabinet.
