By Ben Blanchard
CHENGDU, China (Reuters) - Nearly 10,000 people were killedby the earthquake that hammered southwest China, officials saidon Tuesday as rescuers struggled to reach the worst-hit areaswhere many more may have died.
Rescuers worked frantically through the night, pullingbodies from schools, homes, factories and hospitals demolishedby the 7.9 magnitude quake, which rolled from a mountainousarea of Sichuan province across much of China on Mondayafternoon.
The toll from China's worst earthquake in more than threedecades appeared sure to climb as troops struggled on foot toreach the worst-hit area, Wenchuan, a hilly county of 112,000people 100 km (62 miles) from Sichuan's provincial capital,Chengdu.
About 900 teenagers were buried under a collapsedthree-storey school building in the Sichuan city of Dujiangyan.
Premier Wen Jiabao, who rushed there, bowed three times ingrief before some of the 50 bodies already pulled out, Xinhuanews agency reported.
"Not one minute can be wasted," said Wen, a trainedgeologist. "One minute, one second could mean a child's life."
At a second school in Dujiangyan, fewer than 100 of 420students survived, Xinhua reported.
The U.S. Geological Survey upgraded the initial tremor tomagnitude 7.9, followed by a series of aftershocks, whichresidents said shook the area throughout the night.
"Some are still very strong," said a Dujiangyan residentreached by telephone. "We have put up tents outside to sleepin."
China's Communist Party leadership announced that copingwith the devastating quake, and ensuring that it did notthreaten social stability, was now the government's toppriority.
"Time is life," said an official announcement from theCommunist Party Standing Committee. "Make fighting theearthquake and rescue work the current top task."
Officials must speed food, water, medicine and othernecessities to quake-stricken areas, the meeting ordered,adding that officials must also keep a grip on socialstability.
"Strengthen positive guidance of opinion," the meetingurged, warning against the spread of rumours.
The Sichuan quake was the worst to hit China since the 1976Tangshan tremor in northeastern China where up to 300,000 died.Then, unlike now, the Communist Party kept a tight lid oninformation about the extent of the disaster.
SEVERED ROADS, RAIL LINES
Neighbouring areas were also affected, with 150 reporteddead in Longnan city of the northwestern province of Gansu andschool collapses in the municipality of Chongqing.
In Chengdu, many residents slept outside or in cars asaftershocks were felt through the night in a city where atleast 45 people died and 600 were injured.
Local radio broadcast appeals for people to leave theircars at home to make way for emergency vehicles.
"At this time of disaster, we are one family," radio said."We are confident that under the leadership of the Party,families can be reunited and we can leave this nightmare."
The government has rushed troops and medical teams to digfor survivors and treat the injured through the region, whereXinhua said some half a million houses had collapsed.
But severed roads and rail lines blocked the way toWenchuan, and local officials described crumpled houses,landslides and scenes of desperation.
"We are in urgent need of tents, food, medicine andsatellite communications equipment," the Communist Party chiefof Wenchuan, Wang Bin said, according to Xinhua.
There was no word from the three townships nearest theepicentre, which have a population of 24,000, the report said.Wenchuan has reported 15 dead, a number likely to rise steeply.
More than 7,000 may have died in Sichuan's Beichuan QiangAutonomous County, where 80 percent of the buildings weredestroyed, Sichuan television said. Beichuan has a populationof 161,000, meaning about one in 10 there were killed orinjured.
In Sichuan's Shifang, where the quake sparked a majorchemical leak, about 600 people died and as many as 2,300remained buried, Xinhua said. Two chemical plants collapsed,causing more than 80 tonnes of liquid ammonia to leak out.
"Even if it means walking in, we must enter the worst-hitareas as quickly as possible," Wen said, according to Xinhua.
But a paramilitary officer marching with a hundred troopstowards Wenchuan described a devastated landscape that islikely to yield many dead and to frustrate rescuers.
"I have seen many collapsed civilian houses and the rocksdropped from mountains on the roadside are everywhere," Xinhuaquoted People's Armed Police officer Liu Zaiyuan as saying.
(Writing by Chris Buckley and Lindsay Beck; Editing by KenWills and John Chalmers)
