The deadly earthquake that rocked Southwestern China and felt all across China and beyond, had left nearly 10,000 people dead by midnight Monday, and the death toll is expected to climb as rescue efforts are intensifying.
Xinhua said in a news flash that in Sichuan Province alone, which was hit the hardest, the death toll there has risen to nearly 10,000.
Chinese President Hu Jintao, who had just completed a 5-day official visit to Japan, has ordered prompt rescue efforts to take care of the affected. Premier Wen Jiaobao has cut short his inspection trip in central Henan Province, and have flown to Chengdu to lead the government rescue efforts.
Late Monday evening, President Hu urged governments at all levels to regard relieving major quake as the top priority at a Politburo standing committee meeting on late Monday evening.
Presided over by Hu, the meeting called on disaster relieving personnel to go to the quake hit areas as soon as possible and mount all-out efforts to save the injured.
And in Dujiangyan, Premier Wen Jiabao has pledged to save as many lives as the rescue teams can in southwest China's Sichuan Province which was hit by a major quake on Monday afternoon.
Wen inspected a hospital and a school in Dujiangyan, a city northwest of the provincial capital Chengdu, partly damaged by the quake.
Up to 900 teenagers were trapped as buildings of Juyuan Middle School partly collapsed. Rescuers are seen in TV footage using cranes to move away cement and steel structures. Rescuers had recovered at least 60 bodies from the debris, according to Xinhua.
Officials in the Xiang'e Township middle school in Dujiangyan, about 100 km from epicenter Wenchuan, said fewer than 100 students out of 420 students survived after a powerful quake brought down a major teaching buildings in the school.
The road from Dujiangyan to Wenchuan, epicenter of the quake, was blocked by rock and mud slides, holding up rescue, medical and other disaster relief teams in the city.
"Please just hold on, people are going to get you out of there! " the Premier told the people trapped in the collapsed buildings of the hospital in a loudspeaker.
