China Rocks with 7.8 Quake
A 7.8-magnitude seismic activity felt as far away as Bangkok killed more than 700 inhabitants and covered thousands in rubble in Sichuan province of southwestern China. Establishment spokesmen said they feared 5,000 or more were killed and Chinese President Hu Jintao planned “all-out” efforts to help 900 school kids buried in rubble.
At least four adolescents were established as dead after the earthquake caused several school buildings to collapse and bury nearly 900 students at the Juyuan Middle School in Sichuan’s Dujiangyan city, approximately 100 kilometers from the epicenter of the earthquake, the official Xinhua news agency quoted local government officials as having said.
The official Xinhua news agency quote officials from the Sichuan regional catastrophe relief headquarters as saying that up to 80% of buildings in Beichuan had collapsed after the earthquake.
It said officials also projected that about 10,000 people were hurt in Beichuan, which is about 100 kilometers from the epicenter of the quake.
The quake also inflicted damage to Sichuan’s capital, Chengdu, and the nearby city of Chongqing. At least 45 inhabitants died in Chengdu, where rail and air services, were suspended.
Officially, more than 600 people were injured, 58 of them critically, government media quoted the provincial seismological bureau as saying.
Administration and local officials said the quake struck at exactly 2:28pm local time (1:28pm in Thailand) although shock waves would not have been felt in Thailand for several minutes. Wenchuan County, Sichuan province was the epicenter. It was felt in cities hundreds of kilometers away, including Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, in addition to Bangkok.
“Major tremors” were felt by the populace of cities nearer to the epicenter, as well as Sichuan’s capital, Chengdu, and nearby Chongqing, the official news agency Xinhua said.
China Rocks with 7.8 Quake
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