Rescue Workers Struggle To Reach Victims of China Quake

CHENGDU, China — More than 12 hours after an earthquake struck in central China yesterday there was only silence from Wenchuan, the epicenter of the disaster.

More than 110,000 people live in Wenchuan, where the rice-growing plains of Chengdu give way to the mountains bordering the Tibetan plateau.

Rescue workers battled to clear a route to the region, but said they feared the initial death count of 8,600 could soar when the true situation emerges.

With its forests of pine and bamboo, high cliffs and deep gorges, Wenchuan is one of the most remote and deprived regions of China and home to the Qiang, an ethnic group that has lived between the Han Chinese and the Tibetans for centuries.

Colossal landslides of mud and rubble had knocked down telephone lines and cell phone towers, and had blocked every road. On the road north from Chengdu, minibuses carrying precious cartons of aid sat in long tailbacks while the army was stranded 60 miles away.

In frustration, Prime Minister Wen of China ordered troops from the People's Liberation Army to walk to Wenchuan if they had to. "The sooner we arrive, the more lives we can save," he said.

As the army tried to move helicopters to the area, many predicted the already desperate situation would worsen over the coming days as heavy rain slicks the mud further.

"We are doing everything we can, but the roads are blanketed with rocks and boulders," a local Communist Party official trying to lead a rescue team, Li Chongxi, said. Wenchuan is most famous for being the home to the world's first Giant Panda reserve and breeding center, in Wolong.

Elsewhere, rescuers were battling to save hundreds of people trapped in the rubble of schools, offices, and factories after the 7.8 magnitude quake.

At least 50 people were instantly killed when the three-storey Juyuan Middle School collapsed in Dujiangyan. The quake, which struck during afternoon classes, trapped the rest of the school's 900 teenagers underneath huge slabs of concrete.

Five cranes were brought in to free the pupils, many of whom were screaming for help. One tearful mother told the state news agency, Xinhua, that her son Zhang Chengwei was buried. Two girls said they had escaped by "running faster" than others.

"We ran out of our house when the quake hit," a villager who lived close to the school and helped with the rescue work, Gao Shangyuan, said. "Some students jumped out of the window and a few others ran down the stairs that did not collapse," he added.

At least five other schools collapsed in Deyang, a city of around 4 million people near the epicenter, causing at least 100 deaths. Two chemical plants were destroyed, including one in Shifang city that released more than 80 metric tons of highly corrosive liquid ammonia.

Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from their buildings in Chengdu, but barely any buildings collapsed during the tremors, a sign of the city's modernity.

A teacher on a school trip, Ailsa Weymes, said: "We felt it all through our bodies. The tables were moving, the floor was moving, the lights were shaking. It lasted for about 20 seconds. We were in the middle of eating when we were told to get out of the restaurant."