BEIJING (Reuters) – The death toll from a powerful  earthquake in southwest China has risen to 589, Xinhua news  agency reported today, with hundreds of homes and some  schools toppled in the remote mountainous Tibetan Plateau.

The agency quoted local quake-relief headquarters as giving  the figure following Wednesday’s quake, which also injured  thousands. The death toll had earlier stood at 400.

Hundreds of troops have been sent to Qinghai Province’s  Yushu county. Xinhua said teams of rescue workers, as well as  health and disease control experts had also been dispatched,  together with groups tasked with detecting aftershocks.

Local officials had spoken yesterday of the urgent need  for medicine and medical workers.

“I see injured people everywhere. The biggest problem now is  that we lack tents, we lack medical equipment, medicine and  medical workers,” Zhuohuaxia, a local spokesman, told Xinhua.

Some aid shipments from private organisations have set off  from the provincial capital, Xining.

More than 10,000 people were injured and thousands left  homeless in freezing conditions after a series of quakes and  aftershocks caused many of the low, mud-brick buildings in the county to collapse, residents and state media said.

A dam has “cracked,“ Xinhua said, and “workers are trying to  prevent the outflow of water.“ It was not immediately clear how  large the dam was or what damage it could cause if it burst.

The main 6.9 quake was centred in the mountains that divide  Qinghai province from the Tibet Autonomous Region.

“People are very scared,” said Pierre Deve, with Snowland  Service Group, a local non-government organisation, adding that  many had already given up hope for those still trapped.

Some bridges and roads around Yushu have cracked or been cut  off completely, which could complicate rescue efforts, state  television said. The airport is open, but the road connecting it  to the county seat has been heavily damaged, it added.

The Tibetan plateau is regularly shaken by earthquakes,  though casualties are usually minimal because so few people live  there.

Yushu is home to some 100,000 people, spread over a vast  area, but the quake struck near the relatively highly-populated  county seat of Jyeku.

Government officials told state media the majority of houses  had been badly damaged.

Photos showed larger concrete buildings mostly intact, with  rubble around them.

Rescue efforts

President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have demanded no  effort be spared in rescue attempts, and sent Vice-Premier Hui  Liangyu to Qinghai to oversee relief work, state television  said.

Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who was born  in Qinghai, said in a statement he was praying for the victims.

“It is my hope that all possible assistance and relief work  will reach these people. I am also exploring how I, too, can  contribute to these efforts,” said the Nobel Peace Prize winner,  accused by Beijing of promoting Tibetan independence.

He says he simply wants more meaningful autonomy for Tibet.

Xinhua reported that the early morning quake had caused some  schools and part of a government office building to cave in.  Some vocational school students and primary school students were  trapped in the rubble, it said, although residents said most  students had been able to flee to playgrounds.

“Most of the schools in Yushu were built fairly recently and  should have been able to withstand the earthquake,” said Wang  Liling, a volunteer worker for Gesanghua, a Chinese charity that  helps school children in Qinghai. Her group, she said, had heard  that a vocational school collapsed in Yushu.

Xinhua quoted one teacher, identified only by his surname  Chang, at an Yushu primary school who said five of their pupils  had died when the buildings collapsed.

“Morning sessions did not begin when the quake happened.  Some pupils ran out of dorms alive, and those who had not  escaped in time were buried,” Chang said.

The widespread collapse of school buildings when other  surrounding buildings stayed standing, caused anger and  accusations of corruption after the devastating May 2008  earthquake in Sichuan Province, which killed 80,000.

The quake was centred in the mountains that divide Qinghai  province from the Tibet Autonomous Region.

The foothills to the south and east of the area are home to  herders and Tibetan monasteries of Yushu county, while the area  to the north and west is arid and desolate.