Death toll from China quake soars past 13,000

By Ben Blanchard

DUJIANGYAN, China (Reuters) - The death toll in China's earthquake climbed past 13,000 on Tuesday and looked likely to rise much higher after media said some 19,000 people were buried in rubble in just one area.

Rain and severed roads hampered rescuers in the mountainous

area near the epicentre of Monday's 7.9-magnitude quake in the

southwestern province of Sichuan, China's worst earthquake in

over three decades.

State media reported devastation as troops reached stricken

villages near the epicentre in Wenchuan, a remote county cut off

by landslides about 100 km northwest of the provincial capital, Chengdu.