A 7.8-magnitude earthquake has left 8,533 people dead in southwest China's Sichuan Province, local authorities said.
The figure climbed from 7,651 provided earlier Monday night by the temporary headquarters for disaster relief headed by Premier Wen Jiabao in Sichuan.
The earthquake rocked Wenchuan County, 159 km northwest of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu, at 2:28 p.m. Monday. A total of 527 aftershocks have been recorded.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao greets the victims of the strong earthquake in Dujiangyan, in southwest China's Sichuan Province, on May 12, 2008. Transport, communication networks, and water and power supplies in most parts of Sichuan have been disrupted.
The exact number of casualties in Wenchuan, with a population of about 112,000, is hard to obtain as roads leading to the county had been destroyed by landslides and telecommunication links had also been cut.
But an official of Wenchuan managed to appeal for emergency aid via a satellite phone early Tuesday, almost 11 hours after the county was cut off from the outside world.
"We are in urgent need of tents, food, medicine and satellite communications equipment through air drop. We also need medical workers to save the injured people here," Wang Bin, Communist Party secretary of Wenchuan County, told another official.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao greets the victims of the strong earthquake in Dujiangyan, in southwest China's Sichuan Province, on May 12, 2008. Latest figures show that at least 15 people were killed in Wenchuan, and 307 others injured, 36 severely, according to a statement posted on the website of the Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Aba, which administers Wenchuan.
"(But) there is still no news about the situation in the townships of Yingxiu, Wolong and Xuankou, which are located exactly at the epicenter," the statement said.
The three townships have a total population of more than 24,000,it said.
Wenchuan administers a total of 13 townships.
The Aba prefecture has pledged to restore the damaged roads and communication networks soon "by every possible means", according to a separate statement posted on its official website.
Li Chongxi, deputy secretary of Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, led a rescue team to Wenchuan, but was stranded at Dujiangyan City.
"We are doing everything we can, but the roads are blanketed with rocks and boulders," Li said.
Rescuers were clearing the debris to reach the quake-hit sites as quickly as possible, he said.
Latest figures show that 59 people were killed in Aba and 680 others were injured, 67 severely. In addition, five more people are missing.
Of the estimated death toll in Sichuan, 7,395 people were feared dead in Mianyang City, just east of the epicenter.
In Mianyang's Beichuan County, 160 km northeast of Chengdu, the number of deaths was estimated at more than 3,000, as 80 percent of the buildings were destroyed by the quake.
At the Juyuan Middle School in Juyuan Township of Dujiangyan, about 100 km away from the epicenter, a building collapsed, burying almost 900 students. Rescuers have found more than 60 bodies in the rubble.
An unknown number of students were also reported buried after buildings collapsed at five other schools in the province's Deyang City.
Sources with the headquarters said casualties are being tallied in other areas affected by the massive quake, and detailed information is being collected on the damage. The number of casualties is expected to rise as further destruction is reported.
People try to find their property among the debris of collapsed buildings in Dujiangyan, in southwest China's Sichuan Province, on May 12, 2008. The powerful tremor was also strongly felt in many other parts of the country, including Beijing, Shanghai and Tibet.
In regions neighboring Sichuan, 85 were killed in Shaanxi Province, 48 in Gansu Province, 50 in Chongqing Municipality, one in Yunnan Province and one in Henan Province.
The quake was the worst to strike China since the Tangshan earthquake in north China in 1976, which claimed 242,000 lives.
Source:Xinhua
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