Rescuer teams that have attempted to reach Wenchuan, epicenter of a powerful earthquake that claimed lives of nearly 10,000 people in Sichuan Province and adjacent regions so far, by land, air and water were thwarted .
An official with Sichuan Provincial Headquarters for Earthquake Control and Relief Efforts on Tuesday cited interrupted transport and telecom to the epicenter, alongside bad rainy weather as the key factors to hold back efforts to access the epicenter.
"The efforts to reach Wenchuan will by no means be stopped," said the official.
An earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale jolted Wenchuan County in Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Aba, Sichuan Province, at 2:28 p.m. Monday, leveling some 500,000 rooms in the affected areas and leaving 9,219 people dead, confirmed the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
The strong quake was felt in 25 Chinese provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, including Taiwan, Shanghai, Beijing, Shaanxi, Guangdong and Henan. But at the moment, the deaths were mainly found in the worst-affected regions such as Sichuan, Gansu, Shaanxi, Chongqing, Yunnan, Shanxi, Guizhou, Hubei.
The roads to enter Wenchuan from Dujianyan City were fully cut and it is very difficult to repair them for the time being, so armed police officers were arranged to reach Wenchuan by riding two speedboats via a local reservoir at about 4 a.m. on Tuesday, but they were never heard from ever since.
In accordance with an original plan, the provincial quake combating headquarters meant to send by air a working group to reach Wenchuan from Chengdu, the provincial capital. The group were supposed to fly from Chengdu, the provincial capital, to an airport in Songpan, a county in Aba, at first, and then resort to the land connecting Wenchuan through Maoxian, also inside Aba.
"The plan could not be materialized as the plane could neither take off in Chengdu or land in Aba because of poor rainy weather," said the official.