Chinese Earthquake Toll Tops 19,500

The death toll from the Chinese earthquake has exceeded 19,500, the Sichuan government confirmed today.

Authorities issued a new flood warning from damaged dams and made a rare public appeal for rescue equipment to reach thousands of people buried under rubble.

Yesterday thousands of troops fought to plug "extremely dangerous" cracks in Zipingpu hydro power dam upstream of the city of Dujiangyan, where 500,000 people live.

Today the water resources ministry said the structure was structurally stable but many other reservoirs and hydro power plants were significantly damaged.

The minister, Chen Lei, warned of "secondary disasters" if the damage was not repaired. He told the state news agency Xinhua that downstream residents may need to be evacuated.

The number of casualties is expected to soar. More than 30,000 people were reported to be missing in Shifang in Sichuan province.

More than 2,500 were killed in the city where chemical plants collapsed in the earthquake. Troops buried bodies wrapped in white sheets in a mass grave lined with lime. Twelve teachers and 447 pupils were among the dead.

Xinhua, said the disaster directly affected 10 million people in 44 counties and districts in Sichuan alone.

Among the dead were 50 foreign tourists traveling in Jiuzhaigo. The victims, whose nationalities have not been revealed, included 35 whose coach was buried by a landslide.

Meanwhile, rescuers broke through key roads to the epicenter that had been blocked by debris since Monday's 7.9 magnitude quake, allowing them to move heavy equipment to the worst-affected areas.

But three mountainous towns north of the provincial capital of Chengdu were still cut off, with 20,000 residents trapped in the towns of Qingping, Jinhua and Tianchi.

A team of 500 soldiers carrying medicine and food were attempting to reach the towns again today.

The ministry of Information and Industry issued an unusual public appeal for donations of rescue equipment including hammers, shovels, demolition tools and rubber boats.

The plea on the ministry's website said that 100 cranes were needed.

In Dujiangyan, the city was clogged with buses and trucks decked out with banners from companies saying they were offering. One bus was stuffed full of water bottles, cartons of biscuits and instant noodles.

After days of refusing foreign relief workers, China also accepted an offer from Japan to send a rescue team, a foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said.

As the rescue effort gathered momentum, the depth of the problem of tens of thousands homeless stretched government resources.

North of Chengdu in Deyang, the largest town near the devastated areas of Hanwang and Mianyang, thousands of people have streamed into the city hospital since Monday, mostly with head or bone injuries.

"Our doctors have worked continuously and people keep coming in. We have to keep strengthening our measures to keep up," said Luo Mingxuan, the Communist party secretary of the hospital.

Yesterday, the British ambassador flew to Chengdu to help co-ordinate the search for missing British nationals.

It is not known how many independent travellers were in the region when the quake struck.

Xinhua reported that more than 10,000 tourists were stranded in the Aba prefecture of Sichuan, including about 2,900 in Jiuzhaigou and 7,058 in Songpan County.