In Dujiangyan, on the road between the provincial capital of Chengdu and the epicenter, a dozen bodies lay on a sidewalk as police and militia pulverized rubble with cranes and back hoes. The bodies were later lifted onto a flatbed truck, joining some half-dozen corpses.

At the crematorium, some grieving relatives were rushed through funeral rites by harried workers. Scores of bodies lay on concrete in a waiting area — outnumbering the handful of chapels usually used in funerals.

Thick black smoke streamed from the crematorium's pair of chimneys as families cleaned and dressed the dead in funeral clothes, including fresh socks and sneakers for children.

Fireworks were set off every few minutes and families burned incense, candles and spirit money. Such traditions meant to send the dead peacefully into the afterlife were once banned by the communist authorities but have revived in recent years with free-market reforms and rising prosperity. Burial, which likewise the government once tried to stamp out, has become common in the countryside, although still difficult for people in crowded cities.

In an appeal posted on its Web site, the Ministry of Information Industry called on the Chinese to donate rescue equipment including hammers, shovels, demolition tools and rubber boats — 100 cranes were also needed, it said.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has also issued an emergency appeal for medical help, food, water and tents.

After initially refusing offers of foreign aid workers, China welcomed a Japanese rescue team. Made up of firefighters, police, coast guard and aid officials, the first half of the team arrived in Beijing on Thursday and would head to the disaster area Friday, Xinhua said.

Japan and China have been at odds for years over disputed borders, Japan's treatment of its wartime invasion of China, anti-Japanese protests in China, and general Japanese unease over Beijing's rapidly growing diplomatic, military and economic power. Leaders of the two countries met in Tokyo earlier this month to try to resolve their differences.

The Foreign Ministry said Russian, South Korean and Singaporean teams would join soon.

China had so far received international aid worth more than $100 million and materials worth more than $10 million, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said at a briefing. But it still needed supplies of tents, clothes, communication equipment, machines for disaster relief, and medicines, he said.

"The Chinese authorities have done a fantastic job mobilizing troops, but troops are not everything. You need specialist teams with equipment otherwise you're not going to find them," said John Holland, operations director of Rapid UK, a search and rescue charity with two decades of experience handling international disasters.

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Associated Press writers Audra Ang in Mianyang, Christopher Bodeen in Dujiangyan, and Cara Anna and Anita Chang in Beijing contributed to this report.