Quake work starts after flood fear

Rescuers evacuate victims in earthquake-hit Beichuan County in Mianyang

Rescue work has resumed in Sichuan province after survivors of a massive earthquake spent a jittery night worried that blocked rivers would flood their already devastated towns.

Two rivers backed up by landslides had threatened to flood the towns, sending thousands of people fleeing in a region still staggering from the country's worst disaster in 30 years.

The government fears the death toll from last Monday's 7.9-magnitude quake will surpass 50,000.

Part of a mountain sheared off by the quake blocked the Qingzhu river and hit the village of Donghekou, entombing an unknown number of people inside a huge mound of earth.

But an official said that the flooding danger had eased.

"The river levels have dropped," he said at the disaster command post in nearby Qingchuan, in the northern part of Sichuan province.

Frightened residents had streamed out of the entire county on the northern edge of the quake zone, spurred by mobile phone text messages sent en masse by local government officials warning that the water level was rising and people downstream were being evacuated.

In the town of Beichuan, 60 miles to the south, thousands fled as the reports circulated.

The swift exodus underscored the fears that persist. A strong aftershock -- the second in two days and measured by the US Geological Survey at magnitude 5.7 -- shook the area early on Sunday for 45 seconds, causing people to run into the streets.

Chinese Cabinet spokesman Guo Weimin said 28,881 deaths have been confirmed so far as the death toll continued climbing toward an expected final tally of at least 50,000.