Zhou Chun, a 70-year-old retired mechanic, was leaving Dujiangyan with a soiled light blue blanket draped over his shoulders. “My wife died in the quake. My house was destroyed,” he said. “I am going to Chengdu, but I don’t know where I’ll live.”

Zhou and other survivors were pulling luggage and clutching plastic bags of food amid a steady drizzle and the constant wall of ambulances.

Just east of the epicenter, 1,000 students and teachers were killed or missing at a collapsed high school in Beichuan county—a more than six-storey building reduced to a pile of rubble about two meters high, according to Xinhua. Xinhua said up to 5,000 people were killed and 80 percent of the buildings had collapsed in Beichuan.

The deaths were separate from another leveled school in Dujiangyan where 900 students were feared dead. As bodies of teenagers were carried out on doors used as makeshift stretchers, relatives lit incense and candles and also set off fireworks to ward away evil spirits.

Rescue teams were also trying to get to a woman who was eight months pregnant and trapped in a seven-story apartment building that collapsed.

Premier Wen Jiabao, who rushed to the area to oversee rescue efforts, said a push was on to clear roads and restore electricity as soon as possible. His visit to the disaster scene was prominently featured on state TV, a gesture meant to reassure people that the ruling party was doing all it could.

Fifteen missing British tourists were believed in that area at the time of the quake and were “out of reach,” Xinhua reported. They were likely visiting the Wolong Nature Reserve. Two Chinese-Americans and a Thai tourist also were missing in Sichuan province, the agency said, citing tourism officials.