Pretoria - President Jacob Zuma has expressed his condolences to the President and people of China following a strong earthquake that struck the country on Wednesday.
"On behalf of the government and the people of South Africa, I wish to convey my heartfelt condolences to President Hu Jintao, the government of the People's Republic of China and the Chinese people during these trying moments following the earth quake that wreaked havoc and resulted in untold distress in China's Province of Qinghai," Zuma said on Wednesday.
He said it was unfortunate that natural disasters have become a common phenomenon around the world and continue to gravely afflict humanity at a time when people experience a myriad of development challenges.
"I have all the confidence that the Chinese authorities will deploy all the necessary efforts to save more lives in this disaster and bring the much needed relief to the affected communities," he said.
The death toll from the7.1-magnitude earthquake in northwest China's Qinghai Province has risen to 617, rescuers said Thursday.
The latest statistics show that 313 people were missing and 9 110 injured, 970 severely, said a spokesman with the rescue headquarters in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu in southern Qinghai.
Almost 2 000 soldiers, police officers and fire-fighters were carrying out search and rescue operation in the Gyegu Town, the seat of the Yushu prefecture government, the spokesman said.
More rescuers were en route to the town that is close to the epicenter and home to 100 000 residents, he said.
The quake struck the Yushu County in the Yushu prefecture at 7:49am Wednesday with a depth of about 33km. The epicenter was calculated to be 33.1 north and 96.7 east, the China Earthquake Networks Center reported.
A series of aftershocks have been reported so far, with the biggest being at 6.3 magnitude.
The epicenter is at the Rima Village in the Shanglaxiu Township, a pasturing and sparsely-populated area about 50km west of Gyegu and about 800km away from the provincial capital Xining.
Many people are still buried in the debris as more than 85 percent of houses in Gyegu, mostly made of mudbrick and wood, had collapsed.
