China warned the death toll from this week's earthquake could soar to 50,000 while the government issued a rare public appeal on Thursday for rescue equipment as it struggled to cope with the disaster. Rescue workers cleared roads to the epicentre in the race to find survivors. More than 72 hours after the earthquake rattled central China, the relief effort appeared to shift from poring through downed buildings for survivors to the grim duty of searching for bodies. The confirmed death toll reached 19,509, up from the nearly 15,000 confirmed dead the day before, according to the Earthquake and Disaster Relief Headquarters of the state council, the country's Cabinet. The council said deaths could rise to some 50,000, state TV reported. Meanwhile, The government of India has decided to offer assistance of $5 million to China for its relief activities for the victims of the earthquake, an external affairs ministry statement said. The amount would be utilised for relief material including blankets, tents, sleeping bags, medicines for the victims of the killer quake. External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee had sent message of condolence to his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi and conveyed India's readiness to provide assistance to supplement China's relief efforts. President Pratibha Patil, vice-President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had each sent messages of condolence to the government and people of China. As the panic-gripped and grief-stricken people waited for relief, a strong aftershock jolted Yingxiu town in the epicentre of Wenchuan county on Thursday morning, bringing down rocks from the hills and causing collapse of already damaged houses, Xinhua said. At least 270 students from one school were confirmed dead on Thursday morning in Qingchuan county where a three-storey dormitory collapsed on about 400 students, as rescuers still dug through rubble looking for survivors. Also, China on Thursday declined to comment on the safety of nuclear facilities located in the quake-hit south-west Sichuan province. In Luoshui town, on the road to an industrial zone in Shigang city where two chemical plants collapsed, burying hundreds of people, troops used a mechanical shovel to dig a pit on a hilltop to bury the dead. Two bodies wrapped in white sheets lay near the pit. The police and militia in Dujiangyan pulverised rubble with cranes and backhoes while crews used shovels to pick around larger pieces of debris. On one side street, about a dozen bodies were laid on a sidewalk, while incense sticks placed in a pile of sand sent smoke into the air as a tribute and to dull the stench of death. The bodies were later lifted onto a flatbed truck, joining some half-dozen corpses. Ambulances sped past, sirens wailing, filled with survivors. Workers asked the homeless to sign up for temporary housing, although it was unclear where they would live. Not all hope of finding survivors was lost. After more than three days trapped under debris, a 22-year-old woman was pulled to safety in Dujiangyan. Covered in dust and peering out through a small opening, she was shown waving on state television shortly before being rescued. "I was confident that you were coming to rescue me. I'm alive. I'm so happy," the unnamed woman said on CCTV. An expert said the time for rescues was growing short. "Within 72 hours after the disaster is the critical period. Generally, the sooner the rescue of the buried, the better," the chief engineer of Shijiazhuang Bureau of Seismology, Liang Guiping, told state TV.