A man has been branded a "miracle of life" as he was found 17 days after a deadly earthquake and getting lost in the mountains.
Gan Yu was caught up in a 6.6 magnitude earthquake that struck China's Sichuan province earlier this month but managed to walk away largely unscathed.
The deadly quake killed at least 93 people while thousands were left homeless.
Yu, an employee at the Wandong hydropower plant, was found alive yesterday by a local villager, according to state-owned China National Radio.
The rescue was dubbed a "miracle of life", and Yu was on duty with his co-worker Luo Young on September 5 when the earthquake hit, Times of India reports.
The pair heroically stayed in the area to give first aid to injured colleagues and also managed to stop flooding by releasing water from the nearby dam.
It's thought they walked around 12 miles after attempting to leave the remote power station.
However, it's reported that Yu, who is severely short-sighted, lost his glasses and struggled to navigate the mountains.
The two men tried desperately to signal for help, with Young adding: "We took our clothes off, strung them on tree branches and waved them around."
Young then went to seek help, leaving Yu on his own with a bed of moss and bamboo leaves and some wild fruit and bamboo shoots to eat.
Young was found by rescuers on September 8 after he successfully used a fire to attract a helicopter's attention.
When Yu's shelter was discovered three days later he had disappeared - the only trace of him left was his scattered clothing and footprints, prompting concerns he had died from hypothermia.
A local farmer returned to the village at the foot of the mountain earlier this week and overheard talks about the rescue mission.
He joined the search on Wednesday and, after two hours of hunting for Yu, heard his faint cries and saw him lying under trees.
It took the other rescuers several hours to reach Yu before he was flown to a nearby hospital where it was discovered he had suffered a number of bone fractures.
The shaking from the terrifying earthquake, which hit just after lunchtime on September 5, damaged houses and triggered landslides, blocking some roads and disrupting power and phone lines, CCTV has shown.
The epicentre of the earthquake lay near a tourist hotspot in Luding county, about 161 miles from the provincial capital of Chengdu, the China Earthquake Administration said.
Around a million residents in surrounding areas also experienced tremors in the aftermath of the quake.
Laura Luo, who lives in Chengdu, was on her way home when she saw people rushing out of their high-rise homes in panic after getting earthquake warnings on their phones.
"There were many people who were so terrified they started crying," the international PR consultant told Reuters.
Chengdu residents are currently under lockdown following a Coronavirus outbreak that has restricted most of its 21 million residents to their homes.
The earthquake was another blow to residents who have also been dealing with a heat wave and drought that led to water shortages and power cuts.
