China's massive army is spearheading the desperate relief effort following Monday's 7.9-magnitude earthquake in the country's southwest, with more than 50,000 People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops sent into the disaster zone.

A national blood drive was also launched to supply the tens of thousands of survivors, while the nation's private airlines were called in to transport aid, and the Red Cross Society of China appealed to all Chinese for cash donations.

However, bad weather and the destruction of roads severely hampered the effort, forcing relief teams to hike into areas ravaged by the quake, which has killed at least 10,000 people and reduced schools and factories to rubble.

The PLA had planned to parachute troops and supplies into areas at the quake's epicentre, a mountainous county in Sichuan province called Wenchuan with a population of just over 100,000 people.

But heavy rainy and clouds forced those plans to be cancelled, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.

The air-drop order had been issued to "speed up deployment of rescuers" in Sichuan and neighbouring areas, amid reports tens of thousands of people were missing or stranded without clean water and in urgent need of medical care.

Premier Wen Jiabao, who flew to Sichuan late Monday to oversee rescue efforts from Dujiangyan city about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the epicentre, appeared to express impatience with the pace of relief operations.

"We must try our best to open up roads to the epicentre and rescue people trapped in the disaster-hit areas," he told an emergency meeting of aid workers, according to Xinhua.

"At present, we have great difficulties carrying out our rescue work."

A team of 1,300 army medics and troops travelling on foot finally entered Wenchuan around mid-day on Tuesday, nearly 24 hours after the quake struck, Xinhua said.

Other small teams were reported to be trickling into the worst-hit area north of the Sichuan capital of Chengdu.

State television broadcast images showing mountainsides had sheared off in landslides triggered by the quake, heavily damaging highways leading to affected communities.

In other areas, the highways themselves had slid down hillsides or were riven by huge fissures.

Meanwhile, residents of remote yet heavily populated areas desperately awaited help in digging out those trapped under their homes, schools and factories and in treating the injured.

"We are in urgent need of tents, food, medicine and satellite communications equipment through air drops," Xinhua quoted Wang Bin, Communist Party secretary of Wenchuan county, as saying.

"We also need medical workers to save the injured people here."

Zhu Jixiang, a Red Cross worker in Mianyang city about 110 kilometres from the epicentre, told AFP by phone that vital supplies were critically short in the worst-hit areas.

"No vehicles can access the region. The police and cadres in government agencies are working to clear the roads. People got off vehicles to carry tents and quilts," Zhu said.

"The hospital in Mianyang city and hospitals near Beichuan are full. We are really in short supply of medicine and surgical instruments."

Meanwhile, the Red Cross Society of China launched a nationwide appeal for cash donations to help buy badly needed tents, quilts, food and drinking water.

The health ministry also launched a blood donation drive on Tuesday.

"A lot of blood is needed. I hope the public will donate blood to support the rescue work in the disaster-hit areas. There are many injured people who need emergency treatment," Xinhua quoted ministry spokesman Mao Qunan as saying.

The nation's state-controlled airlines also joined in, with Air China, China Southern Airlines and China Eastern mobilising to transport relief workers, Xinhua reported.

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