Beijing - The confirmed death toll from China's Sichuan earthquake rose to about 40,000 on Tuesday, as residents of quake-hit areas fled their homes following a forecast of a major aftershock measuring between 6 and 7 on the Richter scale. The government said the death toll had risen to 39,577 in Sichuan province, with some 500 deaths reported in neighbouring south-western regions and more than 32,000 people still missing, according to an earlier state media report.
Local television and radio broadcast a forecast by the Sichuan seismological bureau of an aftershock on Monday or Tuesday in Wenchuan county, the epicentre of the devastating 8.0-magnitude quake on May 12.
The bureau warned the local government and people to be prepared for possible emergencies caused by the new aftershock, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Residents of Sichuan's Beichuan town, one of the most devastated areas, were fleeing to safer areas on Tuesday because they feared an aftershock could shatter a natural dam which formed above the town after last week's earthquake.
Heavy rain was also forecast for Beichuan on Tuesday.
Many people in the provincial capital, Chengdu, tried to leave the city or slept outside in case the aftershock came overnight, the agency said.
Chengdu's main roads were jammed with cars on Monday night and Tuesday morning, especially around petrol stations, it said.
The agency said Chengdu was calmer by Tuesday afternoon.
It quoted government seismologist Cheng Wanzheng as saying the aftershock would affect all the worst-hit towns and villages near the Longmenshan fault line but was unlikely to cause major damage in Chengdu.
The warning sparked panic in some neighbouring regions, especially Zunyi city in Guizhou province, where many people slept outdoors on Monday night.
More panic followed reports that residents of a rural area of Zunyi saw a mass migration of frogs on Monday, a traditional sign of an impending earthquake, the agency said.
Early Tuesday, a team from Shanghai rescued a manager of a hydropower plant who had been trapped under rubble for 179 hours in Wenchuan's Yingxiu township.
The team had battled for more than 30 hours to free 31-year-old Ma Yuanjiang, feeding him water and glucose through a straw to keep him alive.
Several more survivors were rescued from collapsed buildings on Monday, but the government last week said it expected the final death toll to reach more than 50,000.
Rescue workers have begun spraying disinfectant onto rubble in some areas where they have given up the search for survivors.
The government has started to shift its focus towards caring for the survivors and on Tuesday the foreign ministry said it had agreed to medical teams from Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia working in Sichuan.
Troops on Monday reached the last 77 villages that had been cut off for about one week since the earthquake, the agency said.
But some roads in 52 townships in Sichuan remained blocked and telecommunications were still not restored to 62 townships, reports said.
The government began three days of national mourning for the earthquake victims Monday and suspended the Olympic torch relay through China.
More than 20 aftershocks measuring 5 or above on the Richter scale have already hit Sichuan since May 12, hampering relief efforts and causing some new casualties.
