Tens of thousands cut off at China earthquake epicentre (2nd Lead)

May 13, 2008, 7:50 GMT

Beijing - Troops walked to towns and villages near the epicentre of a devastating earthquake that killed more than 9,000 people on Tuesday, as tens of thousands of people remained cut off in south-western China and at least 10,000 people were buried in one city.

About 60,000 people in Wenchuan county, Sichuan province, had been out of contact with authorities since an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale caused widespread damage to south-western China on Monday, the official Xinhua news agency said.

All roads to Wenchuan remained blocked, but Premier Wen Jiabao, who was overseeing relief work 100 kilometres away in Dujiangyan county, ordered an all-out effort to open a route to Wenchuan as soon as possible, the agency said.

Some troops had set off on foot to Wenchuan from Dujiangyan and other nearby counties, despite heavy rain and aftershocks, it said.

About 1,300 rescue and relief troops arrived in Wenchuan's Yinxiu township, 20 kilometres from Dujiangyan, on Tuesday afternoon.

Military doctors and soldiers began searching for survivors and treating injured people in Yingxiu, but it was unclear when the first rescuers would reach Wenchuan county town.

Military planes planned to bring back aerial photographs of the disaster area, but it was still impossible to land planes or helicopters in Wenchuan.

State media said the heavy rain on Tuesday had also forced the army to cancel a plan to drop paratroopers into Wenchuan.

'There is still no news about the situation in the townships of Yingxiu, Wolong and Xuankou, which are located exactly at the epicentre,' Wang Bin, county secretary of China's ruling Communist Party, told the agency earlier by satellite telephone.

Wang said that the three townships had a total population of more than 24,000.

Wang said the county, which has a population of about 105,000, had confirmed at least 57 dead and more than 300 seriously injured after the earthquake.

It was only a 'rough number of casualties at the county seat,' he told the agency.

'The figure is highly possible to rise as the casualties in the mountainous area is not available,' he said.

Wang said that more than 30,000 people were camped outside in the county town despite heavy rain.

'We are in urgent need of tents, food, medicine and satellite communications equipment through air drop,' he said. 'We also need medical workers to save the injured people here.'

Hundreds more people are feared dead in other areas of Sichuan after they were buried in collapsed schools and factories by Monday's earthquake.

In the city of Mianzhu, the local government reported that at least 10,000 people remained buried after the earthquake and 1,500 were already confirmed dead, the agency said.

Nearby Beichuan county earlier reported that between 3,000 and 5,000 people were feared dead, after the earthquake caused 80 per cent of buildings to collapse.

About 1,000 children and teachers were believed to be trapped under rubble after school buildings collapsed onto them in Beichuan.

Hundreds of others were still buried under debris from two chemical factories in Sichuan's Shifang city, state television said.

The ministry of civil affairs allocated an initial 200 million yuan (29 million dollars) for relief operations.

The earthquake struck at 2:28 pm (0628 GMT) Monday in Wenchuan county, 95 kilometres west-north-west of Chengdu, and could be felt in cities hundreds of kilometres away, including Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Bangkok.

It was the deadliest earthquake in China since 1976, when an estimated 242,000 people died in the northern city of Tangshan, near Beijing.