Exhausted rescuers have pulled out more survivors who had been trapped for six days in the rubble left by Monday's devastating southwest China earthquake.

A woman named Yu Jinhua was saved alive around 8:10 PM Sunday from a flattened power plant in Yingxiu Town of quake epicenter Wenchuan County.

Rescuers dug a five-meter deep whole to reach the woman, and had to amputate her legs before saving her. The whole rescue operation lasted 56 hours.

Earlier at 3:36 PM Sunday, a man was rescued from his collapsed office building in Maoxian County, about 50 km northeast of Wenchuan.

Shen Peiyun, 50, miraculously survived after 146 hours in the rubble. He suffered head injuries and was sent to Huaxi Hospital affiliated to Sichuan University in Chengdu.

Doctors said he had a "very good chance" of recovery.

Shen was conscious and clutched the hand of a People's Liberation Army doctor throughout his 30-minute trip by helicopter to the provincial capital Chengdu, China Central Television reported.

Sunday also witnessed another tale of survival in which a slightly bruised man Tang Xiong was pulled from a collapsed hospital of Beichuan County at 9:15 AM., 139 hours after the quake.

Tang was still conscious when he was pulled out, said rescuers. His wife was rescued on Thursday.

Also in Beichuan, one of the worst-hit counties in the 8.0-magnitude quake, another man was rescued at 9:55 PM Saturday from a collapsed building, 127 hours after the tremor.

Wu Jianping had been sent to a hospital for treatment, said sources with the Chengdu Military Area Command on Sunday.

A group of soldiers discovered Wu at 8 a.m. Saturday and rescue efforts concluded at 9:55 PM.

The same group of soldiers had rescued 13 stranded survivors after they arrived at quake-hit regions on Wednesday.

In Dujiangyan, a quake-hit city near the epicenter Wenchuan County,Zhang Xiaoping, 46, was pulled from a collapsed residential building at 11:06 PM Saturday, after being buried for almost 129 hours.

Before he was rescued, doctors were forced to amputate Zhang's lower legs firmly stuck in the rubble after other rescue plans failed.

Two doctors managed to get into the tight space and carry out the amputations in about an hour.

Zhang, who was still conscious, was carefully carried out by firefighters amid applause and immediately sent to hospital for further treatment.

However, despite the joint rescue efforts, he died at 1:05 AM in hospital due to heart failure.

Monday's quake, the strongest to hit New China, had killed 32,476 people as of 2 PM Sunday, including 31,978 in Sichuan. An additional 220,109 people were injured nationwide, according to the emergency response office of the State Council.

The government announced Sunday afternoon that the death toll nationwide was 32,477, including one from Guizhou Province. It reaffirmed Sunday night that there was no death in Guizhou.

A 61-year-old woman, who had been buried for 127 hours, was saved from a ruined dormitory building in Dujiangyan by Russian rescuers late Saturday night.

She was the first survivor found by a foreign rescue team.

Although the time for the best chance of rescue, the first 72 hours after an earthquake, had passed, "saving people's lives is still the top priority of the relief work", President Hu Jintao said Saturday night.

"We should put people first," Hu told local government and central government department officials at an overnight meeting in Chengdu.

Hu flew to Sichuan on Friday from Beijing to inspect and oversee relief work in the worst-hit areas.

The government has mobilized rescue staff to conduct thorough searches in quake-ravaged villages for possible survivors and to never give up.

Qian Gang, author of the book Tangshan Earthquake, said 72-hour period was just an average time, as many people had survived for much longer.

Qian, who spent ten years interviewing survivors of the Tangshan earthquake that claimed more than 240,000 lives in 1976 in Hebei Province, said it was possible that people could live after being buried for more than eight days if they had the will to survive.

He cited the case of an elderly woman who drank her own urine to sustain her for 13 days until rescuers pulled her out of the debris.

(Xinhua News Agency May 19, 2008)