Hundreds of soldiers entered the southwest China earthquake epicenter on Tuesday and have pulled more than 1,000 people from debris, according to the disaster relief headquarters of the Chengdu Military Area Command.

Xia Guofu, Sichuan provincial military commander, led a team of more than 300 soldiers into Wenchuan county, Sichuan Province, and more troops were expected imminently, said Ye Wanyong, political commissar of the command.

On Monday, rescuers were stranded outside Wenchuan as roads were blocked by boulders and rocks following the earthquake.

The quake death toll in Wenchuan is still unavailable.

On the way to Wenchuan, a Xinhua reporter encountered five men who escaped the disaster. Tan Bin, 56, a resident in the Shuimo Township of Wenchuan, said they had walked more than 50 kilometers from Wenchuan.

"When the quake happened, we couldn't stand straight, and we held each other's hands and ran out of our factory," he said. The five men's clothes were wet, dirty and they all had bruises.

"The quake seemed to have turned our town upside down, all the bridges and tunnels were destroyed," Tan said.

"We walked along the river, but there were rocks falling,"

"We nearly lost hope on our way, but about 10 kilometers to Dujiangyan, my cell phone got a weak signal. The first text message was a weather forecast for Dujiangyan, and we all felt hope again," he said.

A tour guide surnamed Chen led 12 tourists and walked four hours out of the quake center. "We were driving from Chongqing to the Jiuzhaigou scenic area in the north, but our bus was stuck in a tunnel in Wenchuan when the earthquake happened," she recalled.

"We had to stay in the bus for the night, and on Tuesday morning, we decided to leave the bus and walk. We were all very scared," she said.

"I finally made contact with our tour agency and the moment we met the people who came to our rescue, all of us cried and couldn't say anything at all," she said, "we were lucky that the nightmare was over."

But many others didn't escape the catastrophe. A group of soldiers who arrived at Yingxiu Town of Wenchuan on foot on Tuesday afternoon said more than 70 percent of the roads in the town were damaged, and almost all bridges had collapsed. Many people were believed to be under the debris.

They said 3,000 people of the town's total population of 12,000 were known to have survived. No detailed information on the casualties was available.

Li Shiming, commander of the Chengdu Military Area Command, said the soldiers had distributed food and water to children and injured people in the town, and more supplies would be airdropped into the area.

The massive earthquake has left more than 12,000 people dead in Sichuan Province alone, and thousands more are still under debris, said Vice Governor of Sichuan Li Chengyun.

China launched a massive government relief operation following the disaster. Some 20,000 soldiers and armed police arrived in the quake-hit areas with 30,000 more on the way by planes, trains, trucks or on foot.

(Xinhua News Agency May 14, 2008)