More than 50 domestic tourists have been confirmed dead as of Thursday in Jiuzhaigou, a tourist attraction in southwest China's quake-hit Sichuan Province, local officials said.

The victims included 35 people whose coach was buried by a landslide. Two other people on the coach survived but were badly injured, according to the emergency management office of Aba prefecture, Sichuan.

The office said as of 8 p.m. Wednesday more than 10,000 tourists were stranded in Aba, including about 2,900 in Jiuzhaigou and 7,058 in Songpan County.

Yang Changqing, secretary-general of the Aba government, said 1,200 tourists were stranded in Maoxian County.

There were no reports of deaths or injuries of foreign tourists.

The local government was evacuating stranded tourists by road and air.

Eastern and southern parts of the ring road around Jiuzhaigou were cut off, but sightseeing attractions were safe.

A spokesman for the Jiuzhaigou tourism administration said more than 3,000 people had been evacuated by Wednesday and the remaining 2,900 were expected to be evacuated on Thursday.

The China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) said Thursday that 893 overseas tourists were stranded in the southwest quake regions as of 7:00 PM on Wednesday and 10,386 tourists had been "affected."

(Xinhua News Agency May 15, 2008)