China Earthquake Death Toll Nears 15,000

The official death toll from the massive earthquake that struck central China climbed Wednesday to almost 15,000, as the crushed bodies of 178 students were discovered under a leveled school in Qingchuan in northern Sichuan.

The state-run Xinhua news agency reported the official death toll from the 7.9-magnitude quake as 14,866.

The confirmed death toll for Mianyang city alone rose to 5,430 on Wednesday. More than 18,000 people there were still thought to be buried under crushed buildings there. In total, almost 30,000 people were thought to be buried under debris in the hard-hit region.

Military helicopters dropped food and medicine to earthquake survivors who remained cut off in remote mountain villages behind roads clogged by landslides.

Some victims trapped for more than two days under collapsed buildings were still being pulled out alive in delicate rescues.

Rescuers in Dujiangyan pulled a woman who is eight months pregnant to safety Wednesday after she spent 50 hours under earthquake rubble.

But the number of bodies grew along with survivors' frustrations in finding out what happened to thousands of missing.

The scale of devastation became clearer as more rescuers walked into the hardest-hit areas of central Sichuan province, finding towns where 80 percent of the population fell victim to Monday's quake.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported 7,700 people died in Yingxiu town, near the epicenter. It was unclear if the new figure was in addition to overall toll.

Government officials told Xinhua rescuers who hiked into the Wenchuan county town of Yingxiu found it "much worse than expected."

Xinhua said the survivors in Yingxiu "desperately needed medical help, food and water."

Roads leading to Wenchuan from all directions were still being cleared of debris, Feng Zhenglin, deputy minister of railway and transportation, said in Beijing.

Relief efforts were aided in their third day by the clearing of storms that had prevented flights over some of the worst-hit towns. Military helicopters were seen flying north over Dujiangyan, and Xinhua said two of them dropped food, drinking water and medicine to Yingxiu.

Although the government said it welcomed outside aid, officials said it would accept only money and supplies, not foreign personnel.

A 3-year-old girl who was trapped for more than 40 hours under the bodies of her parents in Beichuan region was pulled to safety, Xinhua said.

"You're looking at a city similar to New York, maybe 10 to 12 million people in the city, and literally 95 percent of them at least are living on the street because they are too scared to go back into the buildings," eyewitness Mark Laws told CBS News anchor Katie Couric from Chengdu, the capital of battered Sichuan province.

View The Map Of The Area

Premier Wen Jiabao looked over her wounds, part of his highly publicized tour of the disaster area aimed at reassuring the public about the government's response and to show it is ready to host the Beijing Olympics in August.

Wednesday's leg of the Olympic torch relay in the southeastern city of Ruijin began with a minute of silence. The torch is scheduled to arrive in quake-hit areas next month.

Wen said some 100,000 troops and police had been dispatched to the disaster zone. He also visited a school Wednesday in Beichuan where two classroom buildings collapsed in the earthquake, including a school with 2,000 students that state TV said sustained "heavy casualties."

Peter Ford, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor who has spent the last couple days in Sichuan province, told CBS' The Early Show on Wednesday that Chinese troops are getting to worst hit areas, but slowly.

"But I don't think they're getting there in large enough numbers. Nor are they necessarily getting the right amount of equipment in there because these are ordinarily not easily accessible places, and now the roads are blocked," he said.

East of the epicenter in the town of Hanwang, about 60 bodies wrapped in plastic were laid out as sobbing relatives walked among them. Feet and hands were sticking through the plastic wrapped around some of the bodies.

Some were covered with tree branches or flowers, and relatives burned paper money to be used in the afterlife.

As people mourned, rescue workers in blue uniforms continued to bring out bodies they have had been keeping in the Dongqi sports arena. It was unclear whether the corpses were from Hanwang or elsewhere.

Most of the buildings in Hanwang, which is surrounded by mountains, had been left in twisted piles by the quake, and cranes were tearing down what was left of any buildings still standing.

Farther north in An Xian, on the road to Beichuan, a hard-hit area on the edge of the quake's epicenter, a group of survivors huddled by the road in a makeshift tent to protect them from the rain.

Government buses have carried some survivors out of Beichuan, but Li Zizhong, a 38-year-old farmer, said he had not heard from his relatives there yet.

"Who knows what happened to them," Li said. "All we need is a little something to eat. I'm just happy to be alive."

Li and a friend, Zhang Mingfu, 44, had built a wood and plastic shelter with a straw floor where about 30 family members spent the night. Their destroyed homes were in the background.

"I feel lucky. It's the people in the mountains that we are worrying about, they are our relatives," Zhang said.

Authorities had blocked the road to Beichuan to regular traffic to allow rescue vehicles access.

Mianyang, an industrial city of 700,000 people and home to the headquarters of China's nuclear weapons design industry, had turned into a thronging refugee camp.

The devastation and ramped-up rescue across a large, heavily populated region of farms and factory towns strained local governments. Food dwindled on the shelves of the few stores that remained open. Gasoline was scarce, with long lines outside some stations and pumps marked "empty."

Price gouging was evident at some store that were open. A package of instant noodles normally selling for 35 cents now costs $1.15.