Report: Death toll in China quake nears 12,000

[May 13, 2008]  DUJIANGYAN, China (AP) -- Rescue workers are digging through flattened homes and schools in a desperate search for victims of China's worst earthquake in three decades. Authorities say nearly 12,000 people were killed and more than 18,000 are missing.

[Caption: In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, a student helps his schoolmate stranded in the ruins of a high school in the earthquake-affected Beichuan County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, on Tuesday. The death toll from a powerful earthquake in China that toppled buildings, schools and chemical plants climbed Tuesday to about 10,000, while untold numbers remained trapped after the country's worst quake in three decades.  (AP Photo/Xinhua, Chen Xie)]

The official Xinhua News Agency says Chinese rescue workers report that 18,645 people remain buried under debris in Mianyang city. Mianyang neighbors the epicenter of Monday's massive, 7.9-magnitude quake.

Xinhua said that 3,629 people have been confirmed dead in Mianyang. It was not clear if those figures are included in the official death toll of 11,921 so far.

[Associated Press; By WILLIAM FOREMAN]

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