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Chinese medical personnel give first aid to a man trapped in the rubbles of a collapsed building in Beichuan, southwest China's Sichuan province after an earthquake measuring 7.8 rocked the province. -- PHOTO: AFP
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BEIJING - CHINA has mobilised more than 50,000 soldiers to help with disaster relief work following the 7.8-magnitude earthquake.
Chinese soldiers and relief workers trudged through rugged terrain and driving rain in a frantic race to reach devastated communities.
A national blood drive was also launched to supply the tens of thousands of survivors, while the nation's private airlines were called in to transport aid, and the Red Cross Society of China appealed to all Chinese for cash donations.
However, bad weather and the destruction of roads severely hampered the effort, forcing relief teams to hike into areas ravaged by the quake, which has killed at least 10,000 people and reduced schools and factories to rubble.
The PLA had planned to parachute troops and supplies into areas at the quake's epicentre, a mountainous county in Sichuan province called Wenchuan with a population of just over 100,000 people.
But heavy rainy and clouds forced those plans to be cancelled, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.
The air-drop order had been issued to 'speed up deployment of rescuers' in Sichuan and neighbouring areas, amid reports tens of thousands of people were missing or stranded without clean water and in urgent need of medical care.
A total of 16,760 soldiers had already begun relief efforts as of Tuesday morning, while another 34,000 were advancing towards quake-hit regions by plane, train, truck and on foot, Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday.
The People's Liberation Army also will free up 20 military planes for use in transporting soldiers and armed police to the affected areas, the agency said, quoting the PLA's emergency response office.
Army relief team reaches epicentre
A team of 1,300 army medics and troops has reached the area at the epicentre of China's massive earthquake, the first sizeable relief force to get there, state media said on Tuesday.
The team immediately began searching for survivors and treating the injured in Wenchuan county after being forced to hike in overland due to massive damage to roads in the region, Xinhua news agency reported.
The team arrived nearly 24 hours after the 7.8-magnitude quake struck Wenchuan, leaving tens of thousands of people dead or missing in Sichuan and neighbouring provinces.
The quake has blocked many roads leading to the hardest-hit areas around the epicentre at the city of Wenchuan in Sichuan province.
'We must try our best to open up roads to the epicentre and rescue people trapped in the disaster-hit areas,' Premier Wen Jiabao told an emergency meeting in the quake-ravaged city of Dujiangyan on Tuesday, according to Xinhua.
Mr Wen said the military forces that had been deployed for the relief effort should also prepare for the air-dropping of food and medicine into affected regions.
'At present, we have great difficulties carrying out our rescue work,' Mr Wen said.
The PLA, the world's largest fighting force, had 2.3 million service men and women as of 2005.
It has a long history of intervening to help with relief efforts following the country's frequent earthquakes, floods and other disasters.
It deployed more than a million soldiers and paramilitary troops in January and February to help the country dig out of severe winter ice and snow storms. -- AFP
Read the following:
Latest information on China quake death toll
Eye-witness accounts by survivors of the China quake
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