Thirty-three more survivors were pulled out of debris in the Beichuan County in southwest China Friday as rescue efforts entered their fourth day since the 7.8-magnitude earthquake.

The total number of survivors saved in Beichuan in Sichuan Province has thus risen to 13,595, rescuers said.

Beichuan, a county of about 160,000 people, is one of the worst-hit regions, with 80 percent of the buildings collapsed and at least 7,000 lives lost.

Zhang Yan, a 36-year-old woman pharmacist, was rescued at 2:36 PM Friday. She was unconscious and soldiers carried her on their backs to a nearby medical center.

A 72-year-old woman named Deng Zhongqun was found by soldiers after being stranded at her badly damaged hillside house. She had been injured by a falling girder and had eaten only nuts over the past four days.

"Thank goodness for the soldiers. I only weigh 65 kilograms and they carried me by turns on their backs, walking miles to reach the medical station," said Deng.

The death toll from Monday's earthquake in Sichuan alone has exceeded 21,500 while 14,000 others remained buried as of 4:00 PM Friday, vice provincial governor Li Chengyun said at a press conference.

He said that 159,000 people were injured in Monday's massive earthquake and 4.8 million people had been relocated.

Friday's death toll rose by about 2,000 from that of Thursday.

Sichuan had experienced 4,432 aftershocks in the past four days, Li said.

(Xinhua News Agency May 17, 2008)