More than 50,000 people are feared dead in southwest China's Sichuan Province alone after Monday's earthquake, the rescue headquarters of the State Council said Thursday.
The 7.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Wenchuan County, about 159 km northwest of the provincial capital of Chengdu, has severely affected an area of more than 100,000 square km, according to the rescue headquarters headed by Premier Wen Jiabao.
The confirmed death toll in Sichuan was 19,509 by 4 p.m. Thursday, up by 5,046 from Wednesday's 14,463, Li Chengyun, vice provincial governor of Sichuan told a press conference.
Another 102,103 people were injured and 12,300 buried in the rubble, he said.
Rescuers have pulled 13,400 people alive out of the debris, he said.
The Sichuan provincial government has handed over 670 million yuan (95.7 million U.S. dollars) for disaster relief efforts to quake-hit areas.
More than 100,000 People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers and armed police, 1,235 medical teams, local officials and volunteers were racing the clock for rescue and relief operations.
It was the worst earthquake to strike China since the Tangshan earthquake in northern Hebei Province in 1976, which claimed 242,000 lives.
The tremors were also felt in most parts of the country.
In regions neighboring Sichuan, 280 were killed in Gansu Province, 106 in Shaanxi Province, 14 in Chongqing Municipality, two in Henan Province, one in Yunnan Province and one in Hubei Province.
China's central government has orderedWednesday evening to mobilize 90 more helicopters for rescue missions in the mountain-logged rural areas, also epicenter of the killer earthquake .The total number of rescue helicopters has reached 110.
"We will try our best to send milk powder to parents and ensure children do not go hungry." Wen said on Tuesday after learning that some infants were running short of food and many people needed drinking water and tents.
Wen was visiting cities worst hit by the quake, including Dujiangyan, Deyang and Mianzhu.
"People are trapped in the debris; we must seize every second," he told an emergency meeting.
Rescuers were racing against time to find survivors after the strongest quake to hit China in 32 years jolted southwestern Sichuan province, demolishing buildings andtrapping tens of thousands beneath the rubble.
 Soldiers carry those injured from the earthquake from a military helicopter that transported them to Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, May 14, 2008. |
Ordered by the General Staff of the PLA headquarters, up to 600 People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops entered Wenchuan county on foot, the epicenter, late Tuesday and pulled more than 1,000 people from debris, according to the disaster relief headquarters of the Chengdu Military Command.It was not clear how many had survived. The county city is estimated to have 110,000 permanent and migrantresidents.
Earlier reports from Sichuansaid only about2,300 people of a town in the hardest hit county, named Yingxiu, out of a total population of 10,000, were known to have survived. Rescuers said the town was inaccessible by road.
The soldiers reported more than 70 percent of the roads in the town damaged, and almost all bridges had collapsed. Many people were believed to be under the debris.
 An aerial view ofa town inthe epicenter of Wenchuan County, Southwest China's Sichuan Province, after the deadly May 12 earthquake, in May 14, 2008. |
Previous attempts by rescuers to reach the epicenter "by land, air and water" failed because of landslides, telecommunication breakdown and rain, an official with the Sichuan provincial relief headquarters said.
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100,000 Soldiers Mobilized
By the end of Wednesday, May 14,a total of 100,000 PLA troops and armed police were sent to stricken Sichuan Province.
Also the first batch of 100 elite soldiers were parachuted on Wednesday afternoon to the previously cut-off Maoxian County, which is close to the epicenter. The parachutists landed safely at 12:20 pm.
Wang Zhenyao, director of the disaster relief department of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, told a press conference on Tuesday that people trapped in collapsed buildings could survive for up to a week.
According to Wang, transportation hurdles and the huge number of victims were the two major difficulties facing rescue and relief workers.
Meanwhile, huge amounts of relief materials are required, Wang said, adding that up to 60,000 tents are needed in Mianyang alone, putting further pressure on transport.
Foreign Team to Join Relief Operations
Japan will send an emergency relief team Thursday to China's quake-stricken areas, Foreign Ministry officials said.
The Japanese government is coordinating with relevant departments of the Chinese side over details of the relief operations, they said.
The first batch of the relief team, consisting of some 10 members, is scheduled to set off from Narita airport later Thursday.China has accepted Japan's offer to send an emergency response team to the quake-stricken southwest area, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said in Beijing on Thursday.
Many international organizations and foreign leaders have expressed sympathy and pledged to offer help, Qin Gang told reporters at a earlier press conference in Beijing.
Impacted dams getting repaired
 This Sept. 14, 2007 picture released by GeoEye Satellite Image shows the Zipingpu Dam, upriver from the town of Dujiangyan, Sichuan, China. |
The National Development Reform Commission, the top economic planning body, said the earthquake had damaged 391 dams. It said two of the dams were large ones, 28 were medium-sized and the rest were small ones.
More than 2,000 troops were sent to work on the Zipingpu dam, which lies on about 6 miles up the Minjiang river from the badly damaged city of Dujiangyan.
The Ministry of Water Resources has urged for protection of the Zipingpu reservoir, saying Dujiangyan would be "swamped" if major problems emerged at the dam. The ministry had set up an emergency command center at the dam "to discharge the reservoir's rising waters and guarantee that the damage posed no threat to residents in Dujiangyan and the neighboring Chengdu Plain," which is densely populated.
