Survivors Plead for Aid As Quake Toll Hits 20,000

The official death toll from the earthquake in south-west China has grown to 20,000 and is expected to go on rising steeply, as survivors plead for aid to reach towns cut off by the disaster.

The state-owned news agency, Xinhua, said the situation in Yingxiu town, Wenchuan, the epicenter of the 7.9 magnitude quake, was "worse than expected".

In Mianyang, 60 miles east of the epicenter, 18,645 people remained buried in rubble.

Tang Xinfen a survivor from Quing Ping, which has been cut off by landslides, said she witnessed people being thrown out buildings during the quake.

She traveled to Mianzhu to beg for aid to reach her home town. "Some people are still alive but they are badly injured and they need medical care. Please use helicopters to bring medicine in. Roads are blocked and nobody can get there; people are dying every hour."

Zhou Yuang, another survivor from Quing Ping, said there was concern about a nearby phosphorous mine where 2,000 workers were trapped without water.

She said some food aid had been dropped from planes, but it proved useless as the packages had smashed when they hit the ground.

The government has ordered 50,000 troops into the disaster zone.

The road linking Wenchuan county and Dujiangyan, near the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu in the south, is still cut off today, nearly 48 hours after the quake.

As the weather cleared after a day of rain, a fleet of military helicopters was seen flying north over Dujiangyan. Two army helicopters dropped food, drinking water and medicine to Yingxiu; three more were on their way.

But some towns in Wenchuan have still not been reached by rescuers.

In Hanwang, sobbing relatives walked among about 60 bodies wrapped in plastic laid out on the ground. Some bodies were covered with branches or flowers, and relatives burned paper money to symbolize its use in the afterlife.

Rescue workers in blue uniforms continued to bring bodies out of the Dongqi sports arena.

Most of the buildings in Hanwang were left in twisted piles by the quake, and cranes were tearing down what was left of any still standing.

Premier Wen Jiabao visited a school today in Beichuan county where two classroom buildings had collapsed in the quake. The 2,000-student school sustained "heavy casualties", according to China Central Television.