Mianyang, China, May 14, 2008—A child injured in the May 12 earthquake awaits for medical aid at Jiuzhou stadium in Sichuan Province.

The death toll from the magnitude 7.9 tremor—the country's worst in three decades—was expected to rise to 50,000, according to Chinese state media on Thursday.

Whole towns have been leveled in remote areas of Sichuan, site of the earthquake's epicenter.

"If there are some survivors under such conditions, it would be a matter of luck, or a miracle," Zhang Zhoushu, vice director of the state-run China Earthquake Disaster Prevention Center told the AFP news agency.

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