China death toll 'will top 50,000'

China- China today admitted the death toll from this week’s earthquake could be higher than 50,000.

Aid agencies earlier in the week had suggested the official figures were underestimating the scale of the disaster. And as the confirmed death toll hit 19,509, up from nearly 15,000 yesterday, the government agreed the 50,000 figure.

Tens of thousands of people are still unaccounted for but more than 72 hours after the earthquake hit the relief effort appeared to shift from looking for survivors to searching for bodies. In Luoshui town, on the road to an industrial zone in Shifang city where two chemical plants collapsed burying hundreds of people, troops used a mechanical shovel to dig a pit on a hilltop to bury the dead.