Almost 20,000 soldiers arrive in quake-hit SW China, 30,000 more coming

BEIJING, May 13 (Xinhua) -- China's Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that almost 20,000 soldiers and armed police had arrived in the quake-hit areas of southwest China's Sichuan Province.

Another 30,000 soldiers were en route to the area by air, rail and road, and on foot, a ministry spokesman told Xinhua.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the armed police were "firmly carrying through President Hu Jintao's instructions", and sparing no efforts to help in the disaster relief effort, he said.

The Chengdu military command has sent 30 helicopters and 8,600 officers and soldiers and 5,000 armed police to the disaster areas and are helping rescue work, the spokesman said.

Twenty-two air force aircraft and nine air transports from the Civil Aviation Administration of China were carrying 11,000 soldiers to the quake-hit region, with 1,400 paratroopers already there, he said.

The paratroopers were preparing to be airdropped into remote areas to assess the situation and carry out rescue work.

Some 15,600 military reserves and militias from Sichuan Province, and neighboring Gansu Province and Chongqing municipality were helping rescue efforts and assisting the ground armed forces to open routes to the epicenter, the spokesman said.

Seventeen medical teams from the PLA had left for the quake-hit region. The military emergency response office and emergency response mechanism were working around the clock, he added.

A major earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale jolted Wenchuan county of Sichuan Province at 2:28 p.m. Monday.

As of 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, the death toll from the 7.8-magnitude earthquake had climbed to 11,921, according to the temporary disaster relief headquarters headed by Premier Wen Jiabao. Of the dead, 11,608 were in Sichuan.

The epicenter of the quake was located 31 degrees north and 103.4 degrees east. Tremors were felt in Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongqing Municipalities, Qinghai, Gansu, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Yunnan, Hunan, Hubei, Yunnan, Guizhou, Henan and Jiangsu provinces, and Tibet and Guangxi Zhuang autonomous regions.