More than 12,000 dead in China quake as rescuers struggle to reach injured
The death toll from the earthquake in China has risen above 12,000 in one province alone as rescuers today struggled to reach victims.
The official death toll across the whole of China had been put as 11,921. But the state-run Xinhua news agency reported that more than 12,000 people were killed in Sichuan alone. The death toll has been rising steadily throughout the day.
The disaster has left thousands more people trapped in the rubble of collapsed schools, factories, hospitals and homes.
Road, rail, air and phone links to the epicentre of the 7.9-magnitude quake were cut, hampering both relief efforts and the flow of information about the scale of the catastrophe.
Rain was impeding rescue efforts and a group of paratroopers called off a mission to the epicentre due to heavy storms, Xinhua reported. Some Chinese troops were marching up to 100 miles through the night to reach affected areas.
It is feared that the quake was China's deadliest since 1976, when 240,000 people were killed in the city of Tangshan, near Beijing. At least 4,800 people remained buried in Mianzhu, 60 miles from the epicentre of the quake.
Chinese rescue workers reported that 3,629 people had been confirmed dead in Mianyang city, with 18,645 still buried under debris.
The Chinese ministry of health issued an appeal for blood donations to help the victims. "There is a large demand for blood in quake-hit areas, and we hope the public actively donate blood," said Mao Quan, a ministry spokesman.
Xinhua said up to 5,000 people were killed and 80% of buildings had collapsed in Beichuan, in a region of small cities and towns amid steep hills north of Sichuan's provincial capital, Chengdu. The government had sent more than 16,000 troops to the area, and tens of thousands more were on the way.
Just east of the epicentre, 1,000 students and teachers were killed or missing at a collapsed high school in Beichuan county. The building, more than six storeys high, was reduced to a pile of rubble. The deaths were separate from those at another collapsed school, in Dujiangyan, where 900 students are feared dead.
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More than 12,000 dead in China quake as rescuers struggle to reach injured | World news | guardian.co.uk