Update: Massive Search And Rescue Underway In China

Chengdu, China (AHN) - The official death count in the 7.8 magnitude tremor that shook China Monday has gone beyond 12,000 and is still going up.

At a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Li Chengyun, vice governor of Sichuan, said the data it had were still preliminary figures as of 4 p.m. Aside from the dead, Li said 26,206 were hurt ad over 9,400 still underneath collapsed buildings.

Li gave a detailed account of the death count, with 161 victims from the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, 7,395 from Miangyang City, 2,648 in Deyang City, 959 in Chengdu and 700 in Guangyuan City. The Ya'an, Ziyang and Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture said it had casualties too, but did not provide specific numbers.

The last report by the Ministry of Civil Affairs counted 11,608 dead bodies. Hourly additions to the number of deaths might be made with rescuers discovering corpse from the collapsed structures.

Aside from the rising number of dead and injured Chinese, the temblor, registered at 2:28 p.m., damaged over 3.46 million homes in the vicinity, Li told the Xinhua News Agency.

After Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in Sichuan on Monday, he ordered the removal of rocks and clearing of mud flows that blocked the streets leading to epicenter. Wen also ordered a massive search and rescue mission be conducted since many people are still trapped underneath the rubbles and no time must be wasted in searching for them.

Xinhua News estimated the number of people still buried at over 18,000 in Mianyang and 4,800 in Mianzhu.

Wen, quoted by BBC, promised local residents, "As long as there is even a little hope, we will redouble our efforts 100 timers and will never relax our efforts."