RESCUE workers looking for survivors in the rubble in China's southwest region have found the heartbreaking bodies of a woman protecting her child in a collapsed house in Lixi. The death toll from the earthquake in the Sichuan province has hit 38, two days after the most recent in a series of tremors. An appeal for temporary housing and tents has been launched after the earthquake, which measured as high as 6.1 on the Richter scale, left tens of thousands homeless. The quake hit the mountainous border between Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, very close to an area still reeling from the May 12 earthquake, which killed at least 70,000 people. Its epicentre was about 20 miles southeast of Panzhihua, near the border with Yunnan, and around 6 miles underground. The region has been plagued by hundreds of smaller, but still serious, tremors since then. The quake injured 467 people and forced 152,000 to flee. The Xinhua news agency is reporting that more than 250,000 homes have been damaged. The US Geological Survey put the magnitude of the quake at 5.7, but Xinhua said it measured 6.1. A slightly smaller aftershock, measuring 5.6, hit the area 24 hours later, but there were no reports of further damage. The government is rushing disaster relief to the affected areas, including thousands of tents and blankets. A total of 656 schools have been damaged and rescue efforts are being hampered by heavy rain and difficult terrain. State television has showed pictures of houses with large cracks in the side, broken tiles on the roads and people receiving medical care in tents. Sichuan province, known for its pandas and spicy cuisine, has struggled to rebuild after the May disaster, which left 10 million homeless.                                         - Daily Mail