Troops rush in to help China quake rescue

China poured more troops into the earthquake-ravaged province of Sichuan on Wednesday to quicken a search for survivors as time ran out for thousands of people still buried under rubble and mud.

Some 30,000 troops will join 20,000 already digging through rubble in the southwestern province, where Monday’s 7.9-magnitude earthquake crumpled homes, schools and hospitals, Xinhua news agency reported, citing a Ministry of Defence spokesman.

Across the region there were clusters of weary survivors and rescuers pulling at tangled chunks of buildings and peering into crevices for people who might still be alive.

In the Sichuan city of Mianyang, people roamed a sports ground housing the homeless, holding cardboard signs with the names of their relatives in hopes of being reunited or getting information about them. Most were from nearby rural Beichuan county, one of the worst-hit areas.

The national death toll from the quake has climbed past 13,000 and is likely to rise steeply after media said 19,000 people were buried in rubble in Mianyang alone.

Attention also turned to survivors themselves, many of whom are without food and shelter in pouring rain.

Premier Wen was to tour Beichuan county on Wednesday, where at least 1,000 students and teachers were buried under a seven-storey school. Rows of apartment blocks there collapsed.

“Beichuan has just disappeared. There’s nothing left,” said Li Changqing, a salesman in Mianyang.

Beichuan county alone was in urgent need of 50,000 tents, 200,000 blankets and 300,000 coats, as well as drinking water and medicine, Xinhua said.

Amid the overwhelming grief, there were also moments of relief when survivors were found. In Sichuan’s Mianzhu, about 500 people were pulled out alive from crushed buildings.

A group of 31 British tourists visiting a panda reserve in the stricken area were unharmed, China‘s Foreign Ministry said.

Smoke rises from the accident spot in Huixian County of northwest China’s Gansu Province, May 13, 2008. A 40-car freight train, which included 12 tankers full of gasoline, derailed inside a tunnel and caught fire on Monday in northwest China following the southwest China earthquake, cutting the Baoji-Chengdu railway, officials said on Tuesday.(Xinhua Photo)

The injuried people receive medical treatments at a temporary tents in Longnan, a city of northwest China’s Gansu Province, May 13, 2008. The death toll in northwest China’s Gansu Province from Monday’s earthquake has risen to 213 from the previous 189, the Gansu provincial government said on Tuesday afternoon. (Xinhua Photo)

Students at the China Youth University for Political Sciences in Beijing take part in a candle-lit vigil for quake-hit victims in southwestern China’s Sichuan Province on Tuesday, May 13, 3008. A major earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale jolted Wenchuan County in Sichuan Province at 2:28 p.m. May 12. [Photo: China Foto Press]