The death toll from an earthquake in China has reportedly climbed to almost 10,000.

Chinese state media said that figure was for the western province of Sichuan alone.

Many thousands are also understood to have been injured in the quake, which measured 7.8 on the Richter scale.

The quake has caused deaths in the provinces of Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan as well as Chongqing, a municipality of 30 million people that neighbours Sichuan.

The bulk of the fatalities were in Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County where around 80 per cent of the buildings, including a hospital and two chemical factories, collapsed.

The county lies to the northeast of Sichuan's provincial capital Chengdu.

Elsewhere, up to 900 students were buried in the rubble of a three-storey middle school in the Juyuan Township of Dujiangyan City.

Buildings at seven more schools in the province have been left in ruins, with unknown numbers of primary and middle school children buried, according to reports.

"Some buried teenagers were struggling to break loose from underneath the ruins while others were crying out for help," news reports said.

Rescue teams are attempting to make contact with the worst-hit areas of Sichuan province, where roads and phone lines have been cut off since the quake struck.

The quake's epicentre was in the Sichuan county of Wenchuan and its force caused buildings to sway across China and as far away as the Thai capital Bangkok, more than 2,000 miles away.

Among the dead were five children who died in two separate school collapses in Lirang township of Chongqing. Nineteen students and teachers are still buried and 120 were injured.

And at least ten people died and 14 were seriously injured in the northwestern province of Gansu.

Buildings toppled in at least six counties near the epicentre, 57 miles northwest of the Sichuan capital Chengdu. Mountainous Wenchuan has a population of about 100,000 people.

In Beijing and Shanghai, office workers poured into the streets as the tremor hit. In the capital, which will host the summer Olympics in August, there was no visible damage and the showpiece Bird's Nest stadium was unscathed.

But in Sichuan, phone lines in Wenchuan were completely cut and a website for the region said the quake had cut several major highways and communications were down in 11 counties.

Premier Wen Jiabao has rushed to the area and President Hu Jintao ordered an "all-out" rescue effort. Thousands of army troops and paramilitary People's Armed Police carrying medical supplies have also headed to the region.

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.