The death toll is expected to rise dramatically in China's Sichuan province after a massive earthquake struck the region Monday morning.
The official number of dead is listed at 8,533, but there are fears the figure will increase due to the number of buildings that have suffered major damage. In Sichuan's Beichan county alone, about 80 per cent of buildings have collapsed.
Ten thousand people are estimated to be injured, according to the Xinhua news agency.
The 7.9-magnitude quake -- originally estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey to be 7.8 -- struck at 2:28 p.m. local time, when office buildings, factories and schools were full. Nearly 900 Chinese students were feared buried after two schools collapsed in the municipality of Chongqing.
Xinhua reported that four of the dead were ninth-grade students killed when their high school in Jutuan township about 100 kilometres from the quake eipcentre, collapsed.
Photos showed cranes trying to remove the rubble of the collapsed building, though there were no estimates of how many more students may have been killed.
There were reports of teenagers struggling to get free of the rubble of the three-story building, as others cried out for help.
The quake made buildings sway in Beijing, about 2,000 kilometres away, and was also felt in Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam and as far away as Pakistan.
"We're really in the very early stages," Francis Markus of the Red Cross Federation told Canada AM from Beijing. "We don't know what the situation is at the heart of these earthquake-stricken areas."
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake's epicentre is 92 kilometres northwest of Chengdu, Sichuan's capital, and 10 kilometres below the surface.
Ten million people live in Chengdu, best known for its giant panda breeding centre. Sichuan province is also home to about 1,200 pandas, which constitute about 80 per cent of the surviving panda population in the wild.
The joint UN-European Commission's Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System, or GDAC, said a quake of this magnitude could cause damage up to 97 kilometres from the epicentre.
Xinhua said the quake occurred in a sparsely populated, mountainous area, with about 110,000 people living there.
In Aba prefecture of Sichuan province, government officials said buildings had cracked and collapsed. Roads through the mountains were damaged.
Calls to emergency numbers in Chengdu went unanswered. A resident whom The Associated Press reached by telephone said there was no sign of damages.
Xinhua said China's Premier Wen Jiabao is heading to the worst-hit area.
Markus said the Red Cross and Chinese government are sending planes with experts and equipment to the disaster area.
The quake came as China prepared to host the Olympic Games this summer. International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge wrote to China's president, telling the Chinese people that "The Olympic Movement is at your side, especially during these difficult moments."
As news trickled in throughout the day about the extent of the damage, Rogge said: "This appears to be a major disaster, the scale of which is only just becoming apparent."
With files from The Associated Press
