BEIJING - Quake death toll in China''s Sichuan province has risen to 8,533, said China’s official news agency. The epicenter of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake was in Sichuan, striking 57 miles (92 kilometers) northwest of the provincial capital of Chengdu. It hit in the middle of the afternoon – when classes and offices were full. Thousands of soldiers and police have been dispatched to the epicenter in Wenchuan county, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) away from Beichuan, which has a population of 160,000. The official sources said 80 percent of the buildings had collapsed in Beichuan county and that another 10,000 people were believed hurt there. In another area close to the epicenter, workers were struggling to dig out an estimated 900 students trapped when the Juyuan Middle School building collapsed. Photographs showed heavy cranes trying to move rubble from the ruined structure. Officials sources said that rescuers had recovered at least 50 bodies from the debris of the school building. It did not say if any students had been pulled out alive. An unknown number of students were also reported buried after buildings collapsed at five other schools in Deyang city in Sichuan. The earthquake comes fewer than three months before the start of the Beijing Summer Olympics, which China hopes to use to show case its rise in the world.