China quake survivor ate cigarettes, drank urine

KEEPING ALIVE: A 46-year-old survivor of the Monday’s earthquake of 7.8 magnitude ate cigarettes.

Other stories in the section:

61-yr-old China quake victim rescued after 164 hrs

Chinese TV aired visuals of firefighters struggling for hours to rescue the woman.

• Thousands flee China quake area over flood fears
• Sobhraj's new love could spell legal trouble for him
• Pak terror reminder: 18 dead in Lal Masjid blast

Featured Blog

Abhishek Patni

MAULANA MULAYAM AND PERILS OF NUCLEAR DEAL

Featured Slideshows

Beijing: A 46-year-old survivor of the Monday’s earthquake of 7.8 magnitude ate cigarettes, paper napkins and drunk his urine to keep himself alive before being rescued after 100 hours of ordeal.

The whole of his body lay buried, except his right arm which he used for untying his right shoe to collect his urine to maintain the water level in his body.

He advised the same to 10 other persons who lay trapped near him, but most of them relented and died one after the other.

Peng Zhijun was pulled out of debris alive on Friday afternoon in Beichuan county of Sichuan province.

He recalled being buried in a collapsed building near a pharmaceutical company in Beichuan since Monday afternoon when the earthquake occurred, and he could not move freely under the pressure of debris, except his right arm.

“I first untied my girdle, and used it to tie my injured left arm to my head so as to relive pain. Then, I started thinking about how to eat and drink. I searched all over by pockets and only found half a pack of cigarettes and a few pieces of paper napkins. I broke the cigarettes into pieces and ate the powder. After the cigarettes were eaten up, I turned to the paper napkins. Besides, I had to drink my urine. I managed to take off one of my shoes and used it to collect my urine,” the Xingua quoted him as saying.

Peng recalled that more than 10 people had been buried beside him in the rubble. "At the very beginning, they were all alive. But unfortunately, they died one after another. I had encouraged some of them to drink their urine. But they did not listen.”

Three other survivors, including two men and a woman, were saved Friday afternoon along with Peng. They had done what Peng told them to do.