Over 50,000 dead, missing or buried in China quake

Rescue teams who punched into the quake's stricken epicenter reported whole towns all but wiped off the map, spurring frantic efforts to bring emergency relief to the survivors.

Planes and helicopters air-dropped supplies, 100 troops parachuted into a county that had been cut off, and rescuers in cities and towns across Sichuan province fought to pull the living and the dead from the debris.

But the overwhelming message that came back from this southwestern province was that only now is a picture slowly beginning to form of the epic scale of Monday’s 7.9-magnitude quake.

State media quoted Sichuan vice Governor Li Chengyun saying that based on "incomplete" figures, 14,463 people were confirmed dead in the province as of mid-afternoon Wednesday.

Nearly 26,000 were buried in rubble and nearly 15,000 missing, he added.

But far beyond the numbers is the human tragedy behind China's worst quake in a generation as rescue teams’ claw through twisted metal and concrete.

The death toll has soared well above 20,000, but that toll is rising by the hour as more information comes in from stricken communities.

"The losses have been severe," Wang Yi, who heads an armed police unit sent into the epicenter zone, was quoted as saying by Sichuan Online news site. "Some towns basically have no houses left. They have all been razed to the ground."

At least 7,700 people died in the small town of Yingxiu alone, state media cited a local government official as saying, with only 2,300 surviving.

Across Sichuan, countless thousands more people are missing or buried under the rubble of shattered homes, schools and factories.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said 100,000 military personnel and police had been mobilized, indicating the epic scale of the country’s worst earthquake in a generation.

The air drop started with planes and helicopters flying dozens of sorties, dropping tons of food and relief aid into the worst-hit zone, most of it cut off from the outside world by landslides and road closures.

The destruction around the epicenter in remote Wenchuan County is massive, with whole mountainsides sheared off, highways ripped apart and building after building leveled.

Rescue teams have been seen pulling bodies and badly injured survivors out of the ruins.

As well as Yingxiu, CCTV television said air drops were also made in nearby Mianyang -- where the death toll jumped to nearly 5,500 -- as well as Mianzhu and Pengzhou.

Helicopters also flew to Wenchuan with food, drinks, tents, communications equipment and other supplies.

The rescue effort has been badly disrupted since Monday by heavy rain, and the Meteorological Authority forecasting more lately in the week, raising the risk of fresh landslides. Amid the setbacks, the nation focused on the precious minutes going by for those who were buried under rubble but may have survived.

Cries for help were heard from a flattened school in Yingxiu, where people were forced to try and dig out survivors with their hands, state media said. "The situation in Yingxiu is even worse than expected," one local official said.

In towns and villages across a swathe of Sichuan, heart-rending scenes were played out as grief-stricken families searched for missing loved ones.

In the city of Mianzhu, where at least 3,000 died, rescuers picked through twisted metal and concrete trying to find people whose voices could be heard under the rubble. "My younger brother is in there," 42-year-old Li -- his eyes bloodshot from sleep deprivation -- said next to a heap that was once a bank.

The local disaster relief headquarters said rescuers had been able to pull 500 people alive out of the debris of collapsed buildings, but 20,000 in three outer villages were still out of reach.

Wednesday’s leg of the Olympic torch relay in eastern Jianxi province began with a minutes silence before the runners set off. Organizers of the Beijing Olympics said they would scale down the relay as the torch makes it way to the capital for the summer Games, a further knock to its troubled round-the-world journey after earlier protests over Tibet.

World powers including the United States, European Union and United Nations as well as the International Olympic Committee have rallied round with offers of help.

China welcomed the offers but said conditions were "not yet ripe" to allow in foreign rescue teams, citing damage to transport links.

A Japanese foreign ministry official in charge of emergency aid said Japan offered rescue teams with sniffer dogs, but China had made no request.

U.S. President George W. Bush and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao discussed the disaster by telephone, with Washington offering half a million dollars in initial disaster aid.

Photo: Reuters