Alive After 11 Days In Debris -- Woman Rescued From Rubble Of Collapsed Shopping Mall

SEOUL, South Korea - Pronouncing herself "all right but hungry," a young woman emerged alive from the debris of a crumpled shopping mall today after surviving nearly 12 days on rainwater that soaked into a blanket.

"She even joked that she could stay there several more days," said Cho Won-bum, one of the first rescuers to spot Yoo Ji-hwan, 19, in the wreckage.

With her body wrapped in a pink blanket and her face covered with a yellow towel, Yoo was carried on a stretcher to an ambulance. She gently lifted the towel to see her first daylight in 286 hours.

"I am all right but hungry," Yoo told rescuers shortly before she was pulled out, nearly two hours after she had been discovered by sound detectors.

Doctors said Yoo, a sales clerk at the Sampoong Department Store, which collapsed June 29, was "in relatively good health."

"She is dehydrated and has a scratch in her leg. Other than that, she is OK," said Kim In-chul, a doctor at St. Mary's Hospital.

Workers found her in a pocket of air too small for her to sit up in.

Yoo's mother, watching the rescue work, screamed: "She is alive! She is alive!" and broke into tears. Yoo's father, Yoo Gon-chang, bedridden for three years, watched the rescue on television.

The jubilation was tempered when earlier reports of three more survivors proved wrong. Officials said rescuers misunderstood Yoo when she mentioned three people who had been alive near her. The three were believed dead.

Yoo was the 26th survivor found since the collapse, one of Korea's worst peacetime disasters.

Yoo was found near where a 21-year-old man was pulled out alive Sunday - a location officials believed held virtually no possibility of containing survivors.

All work using cranes and other heavy equipment immediately stopped while Yoo was dug out with hand tools.

Two more bodies were recovered after Yoo's rescue, pushing the death toll to 209. About 220 people were still listed as missing. More than 900 have been reported hurt.

Earlier today, President Kim Young-sam declared a stepped-up war against corruption, calling it the root cause of the collapse.

Since Kim took office in early 1993 as the country's first president in 32 years with no military background, more than 3,000 government officials, generals, educators and politicians have been arrested or reprimanded for corruption.

Kim's government has been criticized for failing to prevent a series of public-works accidents. A major bridge in Seoul collapsed last October, killing 32 people. Two gas explosions earlier this year killed more than 140.

Shoddy construction and disregard of safety standards were blamed for the store's cave-in.

Only two of the 10 city officials sought by police in connection with the case have been arrested. The two, including a ward chief, reportedly admitted to having received up to $170,000 in bribes.

Four Sampoong executives were arrested last week on charges of bribing city officials. They also were charged with knowing the building was shaky and not warning that its top floor was crumbling.

Some 40,000 people shopped daily at the bright pink, 556-shop complex, made up of two wings connected by a three-story lobby and four levels underground. It was built on a slope over a former garbage dump.