In a desperate relief effort, army-led rescue teams struggled to reach the areas of southwestern China worst hit by Monday's massive 7.9-magnitude quake which demolished schools, homes and factories.

Footage on television showed shattered buildings, roads split in two, whole mountainsides sheared off and survivors fighting to free themselves from the debris.

Officials said more than 12,000 people had died in Sichuan province alone and more were reported killed elsewhere, but the figures are expected to soar as a clearer picture emerges.

Beijing Olympics organisers said they would scale down the torch relay now going through China -- a further knock to its troubled round-the-world journey after earlier protests over Tibet.

US President George W. Bush and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao discussed the disaster by telephone, state media reported, and Washington offered half a million dollars in initial disaster aid.

But all attention was focused on the massive relief effort underway in the province of Sichuan, which bore the brunt of the quake.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao admitted the situation was worse than initially estimated as aftershocks continued to pummel the region.

"At present, we have great difficulties carrying out our rescue work," he told a crisis meeting at disaster relief headquarters in Dujiangyan.

Countless victims were reported buried under heaps of rubble, and officials pleaded for urgent supplies of food, medicine and rescue equipment.

The first figures from Wenchuan, the county at the epicentre of the quake, were at least 500 confirmed dead, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

China has mobilised its 2.3 million-strong armed forces to lead the search and rescue effort, but the teams had to hike to Wenchuan over the mountainous terrain because of bad weather and damaged roads.

In the city of Mianzhu, where at least 3,000 died, rescuers picked through twisted metal and concrete trying to find people whose voices could be heard coming from the rubble.

"My younger brother is in there," 42-year-old Li -- his eyes bloodshot from sleep deprivation -- said, as his sister-in-law cried next to a heap that was once a Bank of China branch.

"We have not slept, we've stood here all night watching."

The local disaster relief headquarters said rescuers had been able to pull 500 people alive out of the debris of collapsed buildings, but 20,000 in three outer villages were still out of reach.

It was difficult to assess the extent of the disaster, with Xinhua reports only able to give scattered snapshots.

They included up to 5,000 dead in the district of Beichuan; thousands dead or buried under a flattened factory nearby; and at least 600 killed and 2,300 trapped in the city of Shifang, where there was a major chemical leak.

Xinhua quoted officials from just one city saying 18,645 people were buried there, but that could not be confirmed.

A foreign ministry spokesman said that so far there were no reports of any foreigners dead or injured.

Earlier, state media reported 37 tourists were killed when their coach was buried in a landslide, while a group of Britons who had been unaccounted for later turned up in the provincial capital Chengdu.

Sichuan is also the home of China's main research and breeding centres for endangered giant pandas, but officials said they were unharmed.

Tempers frayed at Chengdu airport as frustrated travellers waiting in vain for flights out vented their anger.

In Beijing, Olympic organising committee spokesman Sun Weide said the relay would be scaled back starting with Wednesday's leg in the eastern province of Jianxi, and would include a minute's silence before runners set off.

World powers including the United States, European Union, Japan, the United Nations and the International Olympic Committee rallied round with pledges of help.

China welcomed the offers but said conditions were "not yet ripe" to allow in foreign rescue teams, citing damage to transport links.

The toll is the highest for a quake in China since 242,000 people perished when the northern city of Tangshan was flattened in 1976.

burs-km/pst

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