With help slow in arriving, some fled Yingxiu on foot, carrying injured family members in wheelbarrows. One woman “carried a dead infant wrapped in white clothes as if the baby was alive,” the agency said, citing a reporter who hiked to the area with military rescue teams.

Ships from a temporary dock built at a reservoir sailed to Yingxiu, but blocked roads meant heavy digging equipment could not be brought in. Most rescuers were using their hands, Xinhua reported.

The death toll from the quake was expected to rise when rescuers reach other towns in Wenchuan county that are still cut off.

“The Communist Party Central Committee has not forgotten this place,” Premier Wen Jiabao said after flying by helicopter to Wenchuan.

President Hu Jintao presided at an emergency meeting of the party’s powerful Politburo, urging the military, police and others to redouble rescue and relief efforts.

Unlike previous natural disasters in China, official media have reported prominently on the quake, and state TV replaced regular programming with 24-hour coverage.

Scenes of destruction and death have been shown with a prominent focus on Wen, the normally staid leadership’s most popular member who has been shown crawling into collapsed buildings to urge survivors to hang on with impassioned pleas and reassuring children who lost parents.

Amid the tragedy, onlookers erupted into cheers and applause when a 34-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant was rescued after spending 50 hours under debris in the Dujiangyan area.

“It’s a miracle brought about by us all working together,” said Sun Guoli, fire chief of the nearby provincial capital, Chengdu, who supervised the rescue.

But the rescuers called off the search for four others still trapped in the collapsed building, leaving only a smaller crew of dogs to sniff for signs of life.

In Hanwang, the smell of incense hung over a crowd of sobbing relatives who walked among some 60 bodies wrapped in plastic, some covered with tributes of branches or flowers. Nearby, rescuers carried more bodies out of a makeshift morgue at the Dongqi sports arena.

People from the town and surrounding areas packed into blue tents provided by relief officials. Though the mostly older buildings in the town collapsed, a newer Western-style clock tower still stood, its hands stopped at 2:27 — the time the quake hit.

The Mianzhu No. 3 Hospital was obliterated, and the seven-story main Hanwang Hospital collapsed. Surviving medical staff set up the triage center in the tire factory driveway, but could only provide basic care.

Emergency vehicle sirens sounded every few minutes. An ambulance drove in, delivering a man pulled from the rubble and covered in dust.

“There will be a lot more people. So many still haven’t been found,” said Zhao, the nurse.