REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, LUDIAN - The death toll in southern China's earthquake jumped from 410 to 589 on Wednesday as search and rescue teams found scores more bodies while pushing into isolated mountain communities to clear debris from collapsed homes.

The Yunnan provincial government said more than 2,400 people were injured in Sunday's 6.1 magnitude quake in the mountainous farming region of Ludian county — the country's deadliest temblor in four years and its biggest test of emergency response under leader Xi Jinping.

At a makeshift headquarters in the forecourt of a cracked middle school in the worst-hit town of Longtoushan, a senior colonel in the People's Liberation Army said there might still be hope to find survivors.

"There are a lot of people that we may never be able to dig out," said Senior Col. Feng, who declined to give his full name because he was not an officially designated spokesman. "But there is still hope."

Wednesday's jump in the toll — from 410 late Tuesday — was due to rescuers arriving in places where they had previously been unable to contact anybody, in small farming villages built into the mountains above the main towns, said Feng, who is based in neighboring Sichuan province. There were reports of additional communities buried but still unreached by rescuers.

Some 10,000 troops and hundreds of volunteers have rushed to Ludian to clear roads and dig out survivors from the debris, but landslides and bouts of heavy rains have complicated the efforts.

The quake struck an area of steep hills and narrow roads that are not well suited to all the traffic of the massive relief effort. Landslides have shorn shear rocky faces into the region's valleys and piled earth on roads.

The weather was clear Wednesday and the roads into Longtoushan were clogged with rescue vehicles, ambulances and military jeeps along with residents and volunteers on foot.

Wang Zhixue (32 years) a farmer from Wangjaocun village near Longtoushan, said his wife and two daughters survived the quake but that a landslide wrecked their house. They're now saying in a tent on a hillside.

"We're getting some help, but the roads must be cleared before we can recover," Wang said. "It took four hours to get supplies on my motorcycle so getting transportation going is the most important thing. "

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