JIANG YOU, China (CNN) -- The death toll in the massive earthquake that rocked central China is at nearly 12,000, officials say. It comes as teams of rescuers battling through rock and mudslides Tuesday arrived at the epicenter of the earthquake.
Wang Zhenyao of the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs said 11,922 people have died in the quake centered in Sichuan province.
A string of nearly 30 seismic aftershock jolts hit the province in the first 24 hours following Monday's quake and slowing the progress of 1,300-strong rescue teams. All of those quakes were magnitude 4.0 and above.
Military doctors and soldiers arrived around midday and began their search for survivors and the injured in Wenchuan County, China's Xinhua news agency reported.
Roads blocked by rocks and mudslides had hampered the effort to reach the epicenter in Wenchuan County, forcing military doctors and soldiers to walk to reach the area almost 24 hours after the 7.9 magnitude earthquake shook central China, Xinhua said.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao ordered the military to make it a top priority to open the roads into Wenchuan County by mid-day Tuesday.
The Chinese government said the death toll was sure to rise as authorities began to reach some of the worst-hit areas. Thousands remained trapped under the rubble, including hundreds of children at a half-dozen schools.
"Blocked roads, disrupted communication and continuous rainfall have all created obstacles to our rescue efforts," Wen said, according to Xinhua. "People's lives and property safety are the top priorities and many people are still trapped in debris."
An expert told CNN the quake, which struck at 2:28 p.m. (2:28 a.m. ET) Monday, was the largest the region has seen "for over a generation."
CNN's John Vause saw block after block of devastation in the town of Jiang You, about 60 miles (100 km) from the epicenter, arriving there about a day after the quake hit.
"These people who live in the city are now hunkering down under tarpaulins and under tents," Vause said, as a steady drizzle added to the misery. "Many are afraid to go back indoors because their buildings are no longer safe."
Nearly all the confirmed deaths were in Sichuan Province. Authorities expected the toll to climb as rescuers reached the epicenter. Local radio quoted disaster relief officials as saying a third of the buildings in Wenchuan had collapsed and another third were seriously damaged.
The province is home 68 giant pandas at a pair of research bases. The State Forestry Administration said all had survived the quake, according to state-run media. The fate of the 130 pandas housed at the Wolong Giant Panda Protection and Research Center was unknown, Xinhua reported.
Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport reopened Tuesday after authorities inspected its runways for damage following the quake, Xinhua reported. The resumption of air service gives the province additional links for funneling supplies into the badly battered region.
China Eastern Airlines said it is ferrying in hundreds of rescue personnel and tons of cargo from eastern China, according to state-run media.
Joe Guo, a university student in Chengdu, told CNN the scene is chaotic as the military tries to rush aid into the surrounding rural areas.
"The traffic is not good because a lot of the roads were ... seriously damaged," Guo said on Tuesday. "The army people -- they were just running there to get the stuff in and the injured people out."
Some 2,000 tourists were stranded in the northwestern part of the province and a landslide buried a tourist coach in Sichuan's Maoxian County, killing 37, Xinhua reported.
Forty-eight tourists made their way out of the region on foot and arrived in Dujiangyan on Tuesday, state-run media said. Among the stranded tourists were 15 Britons.
The British tourists were likely in Wolong at the Panda center, according to Xinhua.
The state-run Zhongxin news agency reported that a survivor who escaped Beichuan County in Sichuan Province described the province as having been "razed to the ground." Rescuers were stranded about 10 kilometers (six miles) from the county, Xinhua reported.
The Red Cross Society of China, coordinating some international aid efforts, encouraged financial donations because of the difficulty of getting supplies to those most in need. Impact Your World
Mercy Corps, a U.S.-based humanitarian group, is channeling aid through a partner agency in China, the group's director told CNN.
"Everyone is incredibly nervous and shocked about everything that's happening," Kate Janis said, adding, "The first step is getting there and next step is (determining) what can we do?"
At least six schools collapsed in the quake or its aftershocks, Xinhua reported. At one school, almost 900 eighth graders and ninth graders were believed to be buried, a villager said. 
Watch rescue efforts at school hit by quake »
By Monday night, at least 50 bodies had been pulled from the rubble at Juyuan Middle School in Juyuan Township of Dujiangyan City, Sichuan Province, Xinhua reported.
"Some buried teenagers were struggling to free themselves from the ruins while others were calling for help. Eight excavators were working at the site. Devastated parents watched as five cranes worked at the site and an ambulance waited," Xinhua reported.
Some 600 people were confirmed dead and another 2,300 people were buried under two collapsed chemical plants in Sichuan's Shifang city, where 80 tons of ammonia leaked, Xinhua reported. The plants were among a series of buildings that collapsed, including private homes, schools and factories. Watch a report on the growing toll inflicted by the quake »
Much of the nation's transportation system was halted. Xinhua reported there were "multiple landslides and collapses along railway lines" near Chengdu.
Sichuan Province sits in the Sichuan basin and is bordered by the Himalayas to the west. The Yangtze River flows through the province and the Three Gorges Dam in nearby Hubei Province controls flooding to the Sichuan -- though there were no reports of damage to the world's largest dam.
The last major earthquake in the region occurred in the northwestern margin of the Sichuan basin when a 7.5-magnitude quake killed more than 9,300 people on August 25, 1933.
While many of the most immediate efforts were focused on Sichuan Province, Xinhua reported that there were dead and injured also in Gansu, Chongqing and Yunnan.
A 40-car freight train, carrying 13 tankers full of gasoline, derailed and caught fire Monday in Gansu province, officials said, according to state-run media, cutting the Baoji-Chengdu railway.
Other stories of destruction poured in from around the country. Xinhua said one person was killed in Santai County, in the city of Mianyang, when a water tower fell.
A provincial government spokesman said officials feared more dead and injured would be found in collapsed houses in Dujiangyan City in Wenchuan County.
Bonnie Thie, the country director for the Peace Corps, told CNN she was on a university campus in Chengdu, in the eastern part of China's Sichuan province about 60 miles from the epicenter, when the first quake hit.
"You could see the ground shaking," Thie told CNN.
The shaking "went on for what seemed like a very long time," she said.
Bruce Presgrave, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said the quake's effects were heightened because of its strength, proximity to major population centers and shallow depth. Shallow quakes tend to do more damage near the epicenter than do deeper ones, he said.
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An earthquake with 7.5 magnitude struck the northern Chinese city of Tangshan in 1976, killing 255,000 people -- the greatest death toll from an earthquake in the last four centuries and the second greatest in recorded history, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Tangshan is roughly 995 miles (1,600 km) from Chengdu, the nearest major city to the epicenter of Monday's quake.
Monday's quake shook the ground in Beijing, 950 miles (1,528 km) away. Residents of the capital, which hosts this year's Olympic Games in August, said they felt a rolling sensation that lasted about a minute. It resulted in the evacuation of thousands of people from Beijing buildings. Watch an explanation of how strong Monday's quake was »
More than 30 earthquakes -- with magnitudes between 4.0 and 6.0 -- were recorded in the first 24 hours following the initial quake, the USGS reported.
A spokesman for the Beijing Olympic Committee said no Olympic venues were affected.
- Story Highlights
- NEW: China: Death toll at nearly 12,000 as rescue workers reach epicenter
- NEW: Chinese premier urges faster pace of rescue effort
- Province hit by nearly 30 seismic aftershock jolts 24 hours after quake
- Nearly 900 children buried when a school building collapses, 50 bodies found
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