CHENGDU -- Monday's earthquake in southwest China's Sichuan Province has left 8,533 people dead, local authorities said.
The figure climbed from 7,651 provided earlier Monday night by the temporary headquarters for disaster relief headed by Premier Wen Jiabao in Sichuan.
The 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocked Wenchuan County, 159 km northwest of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu, at 2:28 p.m. Monday. A total of 527 aftershocks have been recorded.
Transport, communication networks, and water and power supplies in most parts of Sichuan had been disrupted.
The exact number of casualties in Wenchuan, with a population of about 112,000, is hard to obtain as roads leading to the county had been destroyed by landslides and telecommunication links had also been cut.
The Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Aba, which administers Wenchuan, has pledged to restore the damaged roads and communication networks soon "by every possible means", according to a statement posted on the official website of the prefectural government.
Li Chongxi, deputy secretary of Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, led a rescue team to Wenchuan, but was stranded at Dujiangyan City.
"We are doing everything we can, but the roads are blanketed with rocks and boulders," Li said.
Rescuers were clearing the debris to reach the quake-hit sites as quickly as possible, he said.
Latest figures show that 56 people were killed in Aba and 679 others were injured, 67 severely. In addition, five more people are missing.
Of the estimated death toll in Sichuan, 7,395 people were feared dead in Mianyang City, just east of the epicenter.
In Mianyang's Beichuan County, 160 km northeast of Chengdu, the number of deaths was estimated at more than 3,000, as 80 percent of the buildings were destroyed by the quake.
At the Juyuan Middle School in Juyuan Township of Dujiangyan, about 100 km away from the epicenter, a building had collapsed, burying almost 900 students.
An unknown number of students were also reported buried after buildings collapsed at five other schools in the province's Deyang City.
Sources with the headquarters said casualties are being tallied in other areas affected by the massive quake, and detailed information is being collected on the damage. The number of casualties is expected to rise as further destruction is reported.
The powerful earthquake was also strongly felt in many other parts of the country, including Beijing and Shanghai.
In northwestern Gansu Province, at least 48 people were killed and in Shaanxi Province, at least 61 were killed, according to local authorities.
