Video report

Rescue workers raced to find survivors of the worst earthquake to strike China for 32 years as schools, factories and a hospital were reduced to rubble yesterday afternoon at a time when classrooms were full and work-places busy.

By early this morning, state-run media were reporting a death toll approaching 10,000 across the worst-hit southwestern Sichuan province, but rescue teams were still struggling to reach towns cut off by smashed roads and landslides in the mountainous earthquake zone.

There were fears that tens of thousands may lie buried by debris in the dirt-poor town of Wenchuan, whose 110,000 residents had failed to make contact with the outside world. Few buildings in this remote region would have been built to withstand earthquakes.

In a single county near the epicentre, 80 per cent of buildings had collapsed, 3,000-5,000 people had died and 10,000 had been injured. That means about one in ten in Beichuan county, from a population of 161,000, has been killed or injured.

The magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck at 2.28pm. Tremors rocked buildings in Beijing, sent ripples of fear through Bangkok and caused near-panic even in Hanoi, capital of Vietnam. Some skyscrapers in China’s financial hub, Shanghai, swayed so violently that they had to be evacuated.

In Juyuan town in Dujiangyan city, just south of the epicentre, the middle school collapsed, burying 900 students and immediately killing four. “Some buried teenagers were struggling to break loose from underneath the ruins while others were crying out for help,” state media said.

Photographs posted on the internet showed arms and a torso sticking out of the rubble of the school as dozens of people scrabbled to free them. They used small winches or their bare hands to move concrete slabs. Rescuers had pulled 50 bodies from the debris. Two girls said that they escaped because they had run faster than others. “It was about 2.30 pm and the building suddenly began to rock back and forth,” one said. A villager said that the school had 18 classes, with about 50 students in each class.

Gao Shangquan, a neighbour, said that he ran to the school to help to pull students from the ruins. “Some had jumped out of the window and a few others ran down the stairs that did not collapse.” A hospital in the town also collapsed, burying hundreds more. Another seven schools had been felled by the quake.

In the town of Wenjiang one resident said: “People couldn’t stand. You felt so dizzy. People ran out of the buildings into open areas in panic. Houses of brick and wood have big cracks.” About 6,000 people were evacuated while more than 80 tonnes of highly corrosive liquid ammonia leaked out.

Thousands of troops and paramilitary from the People’s Armed Police were on their way to the region, carrying medical supplies. They were also equipped with 5,000 tents to provide temporary shelters for those left homeless. But their challenge was now to deliver the aid. A landslide had blocked a mountain road leading to Wenchuan, preventing troops from reaching the scene. Early this morning they were trying to mobilise helicopters, but were being hampered by rain.

As rescue teams proceeded on foot, Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Prime Minister said: “We must make every sacrifice to open the road.” He had flown to the earthquake zone almost immediately, urging rescuers to work around the clock. “Our first priority is to race to save people,” he said. “Every minute, every second that you gain is a chance to save one more trapped person.”

Less than 70 miles northwest of Chengdu, a county with a large population of ethnic Tibetan and Qiang minority peoples, Wenchuan remained out of contact either by fixed line or mobile telephone. “It is impossible to get there because all the roads are blocked by landslides,” said a Chinese photographer in Chengdu.

A driver for the provincial seismological bureau described the earthquake as he was making his way through the mountainous region. “The road started swaying as I was driving. Rocks fell from the mountains, with dust darkening the sky over the valley,” he said.

In a sign of rare openness by China’s leadership, which has frequently in the past tried to conceal the toll from natural disasters, Mr Wen said: “This is an especially challenging task.

In the face of the disaster, what’s most important is calmness, confidence, courage and powerful command.”

Such was the power of the earthquake that deaths were reported in three neighbouring provinces and in the mega-city of Chongqing. The airport in Chengdu was closed and flights had been diverted at first to Chongqing. That airport was later closed, apparently to enable the military to use all available air corridors and air-fields to ferry aid to the ruined areas.

Earthquakes are frequent along the fringes of the Tibetan Plateau, which was raised when India collided with Eurasia about 50 million years ago.

The deadliest earthquake to rock the Tibetan plateau in the 20th century was in 1920, when 230,000 people died in Gansu province.

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