Rescue efforts are continuing in China following Saturday's earthquake which struck a rural area some 220 kilometres North-west of the capital, Beijing. More than 11,000 people are now reported to have been injured - 1200 of them seriously - and at least 47 people are confirmed to have died. Emergency relief is being delivered, aimed at ensuring the 44,000 people left homeless survive a second night of sub-zero temperatures. Duncan Hewitt reports from Beijing.

Trucks carrying soldiers, medical teams and emergency supplies have been pouring into the remote mountainous region North of the Great Wall, which bore the full brunt of Saturday's earthquake. Local hospitals have been deluged with patients, as the number of casualties continues to rise.

Many of the victims were trapped as their mud and brick homes collapsed. As many as 70,000 buildings are reported to have been destroyed or damaged.

Local officials say their first priority is to make sure that the tens of thousands made homeless have shelter from temperatures as low as minus twenty two degrees centigrade. Thousands of tents, overcoats and blankets have been dispatched to the region, with helicopters ferrying supplies to the remotest areas.

State television reported that one unit of soldiers vountarily handed over their coats to shivering villagers. Local officials told the BBC that no one would face a second night without shelter, but with further after-shocks predicted, the job of rebuilding shattered homes and lives may be a slow one.

The quake is being described as the worst to hit Northern China since 1976, when more than 200,000 people were killed in Tangshan, East of Beijing.