Another 34,000 armed forces were traveling by all modes of transport and even walking to the southwest province, devastated Monday by the quake that measured measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale.

Xinhua, quoting a witness, reported the road from Dujiangyan, northwest of the provincial capital Chengdu, to Wenchuan, the epicenter, remained blocked by rocks and mud slides, hampering the relief efforts.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who arrived in the province, ordered the waiting troops to reach the epicenter area even if that required walking, the state-run Chinese news agency reported.

China Daily reported the death toll from the quake, the worst in three decades felt across the country and as far away as Thailand, had reached more than 10,000 by Tuesday and that it was expected to rise.

The report said the quake devastated several small cities and towns set against the steep and forestry hills, northwest of Chengdu.

More than one third of the buildings in Wenchuan were leveled but casualties in the area can be determined only after rescue workers reach there.

The quake knocked out telephone networks in Chengdu, leaving the provincial capital's 10 million people without communications.

In 1976, an earthquake in Tangshan, east of Beijing killed about 240,000 people, the worst in modern history, the report said.

The BBC reported besides the dead, thousands more had been trapped.

Zhigang Peng, an earthquake expert at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, told CNN Monday's quake was caused by the Tibetan plateau colliding with the Sichuan basin.