Death Toll In China Earthquake Rises To More Than 40,000

[samran]

About 1.40pm today 12 May, a few of us in our office (26th floor) felt a swaying sensation.

Anyone else have a similar sensation?

[VoIP]

About 1.40pm today 12 May, a few of us in our office (26th floor) felt a swaying sensation.

Anyone else have a similar sensation?

Didn't notice anything.. 20th floor (BangkokNoi area)

[samran]

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recent...s/10/105_30.php

just found this. 7.5, just north of Kun Ming on China. Not 'too far' from LOS.....

[george]

13:57 An Earthquake measuring 7.8 was reported in southwest China with tremors felt in Thailand.

--TNA 2008-05-12 at 13.57

[stumonster]

AN earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 struck China's Sichuan province today, less than 100km from the provincial capital of Chengdu, the US Geological Survey said on its website.

The tremor, centred 92km northwest of Chengdu, was felt as far away as Beijing and Shanghai, where office buildings swayed with the impact.

High buildings also shook in the Thai capital of Bangkok.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...7-12377,00.html

[george]

Strong earthquake hits southwest China

BEIJING: -- An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 struck China's Sichuan province on Monday, less than 100 km (60 miles) from the provincial capital of Chengdu, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site.

The tremor, centered 92 km northwest of Chengdu, was felt as far away as Beijing and Shanghai, where office buildings swayed with the impact.

--Reuters 2008-05-12

[george]

China's quake felt in heart of Bangkok

BANGKOK: -- The 7.6-Richter earthquake in China Monday afternoon was felt in the heart of Bangkok, the director-general of the Mineral Resources Department said.

Apichai Chavacharoenphan said the quake could be felt by people in highrise buildings on Sathorn, Silom, Sukhumvit and Rama III roads.

Apichai said the management of the buildings also evacuated tenants of the buildings for fear of aftershocks.

The earthquake struck at 2:28 pm (0628 GMT) and could be felt in cities hundreds of kilometres away.

-- The Nation 2008-05-12

[LaoPo]

Powerful earthquake hits Sichuan

(Xinhua/chinadaily.com.cn) Updated: 2008-05-12 15:39

BEIJING -- A major earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale jolted Wenchuan County of southwest China's Sichuan Province at 2:28 p.m. Monday, the State Seismological Bureau said, revising a previous figure of 7.6.

The epicenter of the quake was located 31.0 degrees north latitude and 103.4 degrees east longitude, the bureau said.

President Hu Jintao instructed to do utmost efforts to rescue and treat the victims, and Premier Wen Jiabao is on the way to Sichuan to direct the rescue efforts, according to a Xinhua report.

It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties or damage from the tremor.

"We felt continuous shaking for about two or three minutes. All the people in our office are rushing downstairs. We're still feeling slight tremblings," said an office worker in Chengdu.

With a population of 111,800, Wenchuan lies in southeast part of the Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Aba, 146 km to the northwest of Chengdu, provincial capital of Sichuan.

Wenchuan is home to the Wolong Nature Reserve, China's leading research and breeding base of the endangered giant pandas.

In Beijing's financial district, many workers poured from their buildings but there were no visible signs of damage. The subway system was unaffected.

"People were shouting 'get out, get out', so we all ran out of our dorm," said a student surnamed Zhang at a university in nearby Chongqing.

Xinhua reporters in many other parts of China also reported tremors. Reporters in Chengdu said they saw cracks on walls of some residential buildings in the downtown areas, but no building collapsed.

The telecom networks in Chengdu and Chongqing cities broken down for a while after the quake. People complained they were unable to have phone calls on the fixed line or the mobile.

The quake was also felt in Zhengzhou, capital of central Henan Province, where people rushed out of homes and offices and took to the streets.

Many said they felt dizzy and saw the pendant lamps on their ceilings swinging back and forth.

In Lanzhou, capital of the northwest China's Gansu Province, the quake sent many parked cars by the roadside buzzing. Xinhua reporters in Yinchuan, capital of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, said they felt the office building rocking back and forth for about four minutes.

A retiree in Leshan City of Sichuan Province said over the telephone that a wall in her garden collapsed, while a repairman in Chongqing saw the ceiling of his factory shamble and alarmed the staff, who soon left the building. In Shanghai, people were evacuated from office buildings in Hongqiao and Nanjing Road.

An earthquake measuring 3.9 on the Richter scale jolted Tongzhou District in east Beijing at 2:35 p.m. Monday. The quake's epicenter was located 39.8 north latitude and 116.8 east longitude, according to the State Seismological Bureau.

In Shanghai, people were evacuated from office buildings in Hongqiao and Nanjing Road.

Mobile phones in Chengdu and Chongqing could not be reached for a while on Monday afternoon.

---China Daily

LaoPo

[andy1308]

Heard a distant rumbling - no swaying as I was on the 6th Floor (Makkasan). It was enough to make me look out of the window to see if there was rain. I would not have said it was an earthquake without seeing the reports but it was within 5-10 minutes (I cannot be totally sure) of the reported time the quake struck.

[johnwills]

About 1.40pm today 12 May, a few of us in our office (26th floor) felt a swaying sensation.

Anyone else have a similar sensation?

Maybe too many beers at lunch time?

[george]

Magnitude-7.8 quake hits south-western China

BEIJING: -- An earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale hit Wenchuan county in south-western China's Sichuan province Monday, the government and local officials said.

The earthquake struck at 2:28 pm (0628 GMT) and could be felt in cities hundreds of kilometres away, including Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Bangkok.

"Major tremors" were felt by residents of cities closer to the epicentre, including Sichuan's capital, Chengdu, and nearby Chongqing, the official news agency Xinhua said.

The epicentre was about 95 kilometres west-north-west from Chengdu in Wenchuan county, which has a population of 112,000.

Initial reports put the magnitude at 7.6 but the State Seismological Bureau later upgraded it to 7.8.

There were no immediate reports of major damage or casualties.

Xinhua quoted a worker in Chongqing as saying his factory was evacuated after the roof began to crack, and a resident of Sichuan's Leshan city who said a garden wall had collapsed.

Mobile telephone services were briefly cut off in Chengdu and Chongqing, while workers were evacuated from some major office towers in Shanghai, the agency said.

In Hong Kong, people rang emergency services in panic when the earthquake made ground shake and buildings sway in the city of 6.9 million, 1,360 kilometres from Chengdu. There were no reports of injuries of damage in Hong Kong.

A tremor measuring 3.9 on the Richter scale was recorded in Beijing's eastern suburb of Tongzhou at 2:35 pm, the seismological bureau said.

Earlier Monday, an undersea earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale shook Taiwan. There were no reports of damage or casualties from the quake that struck at 10:43 am (0243 GMT), 3.4 kilometres under the sea off Taiwan's eastern Orchid Island, the Seismological Observation Centre said.

Seismologists in Taiwan said the two earthquakes were unrelated.

-- dpa 2008-05-12

[stumonster]

many tall buildings toppled in Mianzhu

[george]

900 students buried in quake

At least four children killed, and 100 injured

THE 7.8 earthquake that struck southwest China has buried nearly 900 students in Sichuan province, Xinhua news agency reports.

Xinhua reported at least four children were killed, and 100 injured when the quake toppled two primary schools in the city of Chongqing, near the epicentre in Sichuan.

People are also feared dead after "rows of houses'' collapsed in Dujiangyan city, also located close to the epicentre.

The powerful quake struck close to densely populated areas, toppling buildings and rattling cities across a large swathe of China and southeast Asia.

The quake struck 93km from Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province and a major population centre with more than 12 million people, and about 260km from Chongqing and its 30 million.

[Briggsy]

7th floor; no sensation.

[george]

Update:

China: Death toll from earthquake hits 3,000 to 5,000

Chinese state media say 3,000 to 5,000 people have died in one county in Sichuan province alone from a massive earthquake.

The official Xinhua News Agency says another 10,000 people were believed hurt in Beichuan county in Monday's quake.

The epicenter of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake was in Sichuan, striking 92 kilometers northwest of the provincial capital of Chengdu at 0628 GMT.

-- AP 2008-05-12

[lannarebirth]

Much much closer to Three Gorges Dam than Bangkok. I wonder what the effects may have been there? Very sad about all this loss of life

[george]

5,000 feared dead in China quake

Chinese state media say 3,000 to 5,000 people have died in one county in Sichuan province alone from a massive earthquake.

The official Xinhua News Agency says another 10,000 people were believed hurt in Beichuan county in Monday's quake.

The epicentre of the 7.8-magnitude earthquake was in Sichuan, striking 57 miles northwest of the provincial capital of Chengdu at 2.28pm.

Nearly 900 students in Sichuan province, state media reported.

Xinhua News Agency did not immediately give any other details or say if any of the students were thought to be alive.

At least 107 people are confirmed dead after the earthquake struck.

Xinhua said another 34 people were confirmed hurt in the earthquake.

Rescue teams were dispatched to the collapsed schools, but no details were available because communication systems were down, an official in Chongqing municipality said.

Injuries were also reported in Aba prefecture of Sichuan province, where the earthquake was centred. A statement issued by the local government said the quake cracked and collapsed buildings, and damaged mountain roads.

--The Press Association 2008-05-12

[Seizhin]

Saw the news in yahoo and was pretty much shocked to hear it, I hope everything will be alright.

[Chinesegirl]

Thanks George..by link me to this topic here...and thanks for this updated news..CNN is also talking it now..it feels so sad to watch it..so I just changed the channel...I believe China will go through this just like we did in the heavy snow accident last year...Thanks !

[Scott]

My condolences to all the people affected by this tragedy. I didn't feel it, but it does explain why my 3 cats urinated all over the place--they are well trained and have two litter boxes, but I got home after lunch to find the newspaper wet and another place. They (and the dog) act up whenever there is an earthquake that is felt in BKK. I never feel them, but they seem to sense it.

[ilyushin]

Unofficial Bamboo Telegraph informed me that 4-5 injuries or worse in Bangkok. At Supreme Command and overheard the news. Just what I overheard from pretty reliable source.

Also my beer supplier guy said it was on Ch. 3 too.

[george]

Death toll in China earthquake rises to 7,600

CHONGQING, CHINA: -- A massive earthquake struck central China on Monday, killing more than 7,600 people and trapping nearly 900 students under the rubble of their school, state media reported.

The official Xinhua News Agency said 80 percent of the buildings had collapsed in Beichuan county in Sichuan province after the 7.8-magnitude quake, raising fears the overall death toll could increase sharply.

The earthquake sent thousands of people rushing out of buildings and into the streets hundreds of miles away in Beijing and Shanghai. The temblor was felt as far away as Pakistan, Vietnam and Thailand.

Xinhua cited the Sichuan provincial government as saying 7,651 people died. The communist leadership said late Monday that "thousands" had died, and that the quake also had caused deaths in three other provinces.

The quake was one of the deadliest in three decades and posed a challenge to a government already grappling with discontent over high inflation and a widespread uprising among Tibetans in western China while trying to prepare for the Beijing Olympics this August.

It hit about 60 miles northwest of Chengdu in the middle of the afternoon when classrooms and office towers were full. There were several smaller aftershocks, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site.

The temblor struck hilly country leading up to the Tibetan highlands, toppling buildings in small cities and towns in the largely rural area. About 1,200 pandas , 80 percent of the surviving wild population in China , live in several mountainous areas of Sichuan.

The earthquake occurred in an area with numerous fault lines that have triggered destructive temblor before. A magnitude 7.5 earthquake in Diexi, Sichuan that hit on August 25, 1933 killed more than 9,300 people.

Xinhua said 50 bodies had been pulled from the debris of the school building in Juyuan town but did not say if the children were alive. Xinhua reported students also were buried under five other toppled schools in Deyang city.

Xinhua said its reporters saw buried teenagers struggling to break loose from underneath the rubble of the three-story building in Juyuan "while others were crying out for help."

Two girls were quoted by Xinhua as saying they escaped because they had "run faster than others."

Photos showed heavy cranes trying to remove rubble from the ruined school. Other photos posted on the Internet and found on the Chinese search engine Baidu showed arms and a torso sticking out of the rubble of the school as dozens of people worked to free them, using their hands to move concrete slabs.

Calls into the city did not go through as panicked residents quickly overloaded the telephone system. The quake affected telephone and power networks, and even state media appeared to have few details of the disaster.

"In Chengdu, mobile telecommunication convertors have experienced jams and thousands of servers were out of service," said Sha Yuejia, deputy chief executive officer of China Mobile.

Although it was difficult to telephone Chengdu, an Israeli student, Ronen Medzini, sent a text message to The Associated Press saying there were power and water outages there.

"Traffic jams, no running water, power outs, everyone sitting in the streets, patients evacuated from hospitals sitting outside and waiting," he said.

Xinhua said an underground water pipe ruptured near the city's southern railway station, flooding a main thoroughfare. Reporters saw buildings with cracks in their walls but no collapses, Xinhua said.

The earthquake also rattled buildings in Beijing, some 930 miles to the north, less than three months before the Chinese capital was expected to be full of hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors for the Summer Olympics.

Many Beijing office towers were evacuated, including the building housing the media offices for the organizers of the Olympics, which start in August. None of the Olympic venues was damaged.

"I've lived in Taipei and California and I've been through quakes before. This is the most I've ever felt," said James McGregor, a business consultant who was inside the LG Towers in Beijing's business district. "The floor was moving underneath me."

In Fuyang, 660 miles to the east, chandeliers in the lobby of the Buckingham Palace Hotel swayed. "We've never felt anything like this our whole lives," said a hotel employee surnamed Zhu.

Patients at the Fuyang People's No. 1 Hospital were evacuated. An hour after the quake, a half-dozen patients in blue-striped pajamas stood outside the hospital. One was laying on a hospital bed in the parking lot.

Skyscrapers in Shanghai swayed and most office occupants went rushing into the streets.

In the Taiwanese capital of Taipei, 100 miles off the southeastern Chinese coast, buildings swayed when the quake hit. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

The quake was felt as far away as the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, where some people hurried out of swaying office buildings and into the streets downtown. A building in the Thai capital of Bangkok also was evacuated after the quake was felt there.

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake is considered a major event, capable of causing widespread damage and injuries in populated areas.

The last serious earthquake in China was in 2003, when a 6.8-magnitude quake killed 268 people in Bachu county in the west of Xinjiang.

China's deadliest earthquake in modern history struck the northeastern city of Tangshan on July 28, 1976, killing 240,000 people.

-- AP 2008-05-12

[george]

China quake leaves 8,533 dead in one province: Xinhua

BEIJING , CHINA: --A total of 8,533 people have died in China's Sichuan province after a powerful earthquake struck there on Monday, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing the local government.

--Xinhua/AFP 2008-05-12

[LaoPo]

'Buried teenagers crying for help'

The Chinese authorities have launched a major rescue operation in Sichuan province, after it was struck by the most powerful earthquake to hit the south-west of the country in 30 years.

More than 8,500 people are feared dead, while many thousands more may be buried beneath collapsed buildings or injured, state media have reported.

The 7.8 magnitude earthquake on Monday afternoon was felt across a huge swathe of Asia, causing buildings to sway as far away as Beijing and Bangkok.

Those closest to its epicentre, 92km (57 miles) north-west of the provincial capital Chengdu, have told of their shock and described the immediate aftermath.

Casper Oppenhuisdejong, who works for a Dutch company in the city of 10 million, told the BBC there were initially a series of minor tremors.

"All of a sudden I felt minor shocks and within seconds everybody was up. It was getting more and more intense, everybody ran out," he said.

"We were in quite a narrow street where everything just started shaking. All the alarms of the cars around went off, all the windows you heard smashing into each other," he added.

"Entire buildings were being evacuated, people were panicking, especially since the phones didn't work. It was mayhem. Traffic got jammed, it was very surreal."

An employee of Sichuan's seismological bureau told the state-run Xinhua news agency that he had been driving near the epicentre when the earthquake struck.

"The road started swaying as I was driving. Rocks fell from the mountains, with dust darkening the sky over the valley," he said.

Aftershocks

Gilles Barbier, who was staying in Chengdu at the time, told the BBC there was no major damage to buildings, but that aftershocks were causing concern.

"In the past two hours, I think every 20 minutes, 30 minutes, we can feel the ground shaking."

Ronen Medzini, an Israeli student, told the Associated Press by text message that power and water supplies and communications had been severely disrupted.

"Traffic jams, no running water, power outs, everyone sitting in the streets, patients evacuated from hospitals sitting outside and waiting," he said.

Collapsed school

In the nearby city of Dujiangyan, which was closer to the epicentre, desperate efforts are under way to find survivors underneath the rubble of a three-storey school building which collapsed, burying an estimated 900 students.

Reporters from Xinhua said local residents and rescue workers were pulling people out of the rubble of Juyuan Middle School as anxious parents looked on.

"Some buried teenagers were struggling to break loose from underneath the ruins while others were crying out for help," Xinhua reported.

Gao Shangyuan, a local resident helping with the rescue effort, told Xinhua he had run out of his house when the earthquake had struck and saw some students escape before the building collapsed.

"Some had jumped out of the window and a few others ran down the stairs that did not collapse," he said.

Two girls said they managed to escape because they had "run faster than the others", Xinhua added.

"It was around 2:30 pm, and the building suddenly began to rock back and forth," one of them said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7396650.stm

LaoPo

[george]

Trembling with fear

Bangkok workers scramble to safety after tremors from Chinese quake

BANGKOK: -- The 7.8-magnitude earthquake in China was felt in downtown Bangkok yesterday afternoon, causing people in high-rise buildings to run for safety.

The quake - centred in Sichuan province, 2,000 kilometres away from Bangkok - could be felt by workers and residents on Sathorn, Silom, Sukhumvit and Rama III roads. The buildings' management evacuated tenants for fear of aftershocks.

Meanwhile, the Thai consular office in Chengdu has not been able to reach 80 Thais living there, due to communication problems, the Department of Information said yesterday.

It is unlikely that any of them, mostly students, would be affected by the earthquake, it said.

In Bangkok, Siriporn Wattanawongvisit, 24, who works on the 19th floor of the 60-storey Empire Tower on Sathorn Road, said she felt the floor and everything around her shaking at about 2pm and co-workers screamed it was an earthquake.

About 15 minutes later, the building's alarm rang and everyone rushed to the ground floor through the fire escape.

They waited in front of the building for an hour before the building management said it was safe to return to work.

Siriporn said the tremors were more severe than in the past because everyone felt them.

A worker whose office is on the fifth floor of the Ploenchit Centre building on Sukhumvit Road said he felt dizzy and heard a noise from the ceiling at about 1.40pm. Realising it was an earthquake, he and his colleagues rushed outside.

Another female worker, whose office is near the top of a 36-storey high-rise in the Rama III area, said she felt the floor move at about 2pm and felt faint for about a minute. When someone told her it was an earthquake, she hurriedly packed up her things and rushed downstairs with her co-workers.

Meteorological Department chief Supareuk Tansriratana-wong said the quake struck at 2.28pm and was felt in cities hundreds of kilometres away, including high-rise buildings in Taiwan and Hanoi, Vietnam.

Tremors felt in thailand since last year

>> April 22, 2007 - 5.4 on Richter scale, epicentre near Chiang Rai's Wiang Pa Pao district, no damage reported.

>> April 27, 2007 - 6.1 in magnitude, epicentre near Sumatra, six southern provinces affected.

>> May 15, 2007 - 6.1 in magnitude, epicentre in Laos, tremor felt by occupants in Bangkok's high-rise buildings and in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, where a historic pagoda collapsed.

>> June 19, 2007 - 4.5 in magnitude size, epicentre in Chiang Mai's Mae Rim, no damage reported

>> September 12, 2007 - An undersea quake of a 7.9 magnitude near Sumatra, tremor felt in Bangkok and coastal areas on the Andaman Sea, no damage reported.

>> February 20, 2008 - 7.6 in magnitude, epicentre north of Sumatra, tremor felt by occupants in Bangkok's high-rise buildings and in coastal areas on the Andaman Sea.

>> May 12, 2008 - 7.8 in magnitude, epicentre in China's Sichuan province, tremor felt by occupants in Bangkok's high-rise buildings along Sathorn, Silom, Sukhumvit and Rama III roads.

--The Nation/Xtra 2008-05-13

[george]

Update:

Death toll in China earthquake rises above 8,500, expected to go higher

BEIJING, CHINA: -- A massive earthquake toppled buildings across a wide area of central China on Monday, killing more than 8,533 people, trapping hundreds of students under the rubble of schools and causing a toxic chemical leak in one of the worst quakes in decades.

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake devastated a region of small cities and towns set amid steep hills northeast of Sichuan's provincial capital of Chengdu. The official Xinhua News Agency reported 8,533 people died in Sichuan alone and dozens of others in surrounding areas.

In Beichuan county, just east of the epicenter, 80 percent of the buildings had collapsed and some 10,000 people were injured aside from 3,000 to 5,000 dead, Xinhua said. It and other state media said a chemical plant in Shifang city cratered, burying hundreds of people and spilling more than 80 tons of toxic liquid ammonia from the site.

In Juyuan town in Dujiangyan city, just south of the epicenter, the middle school collapsed, burying the students and immediately killing four ninth graders, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Xinhua said its reporters in Juyuan town saw buried teenagers struggling to break free from the rubble "while others were crying out for help."

Photos posted on the Internet and found on the Chinese search engine Baidu showed arms and a torso sticking out of the rubble of the school as dozens of people worked to free them, using small mechanical winches or their hands to move concrete slabs. Xinhua said 50 bodies had been pulled from the debris but did not say if they were alive.

The quake struck shortly before 2:30 p.m. _ when classrooms and office towers were full _ and was centered on Wenchuan county 57 miles (92 kilometers) northwest of Chengdu. The quake emptied office buildings across the country in Beijing; could be felt as far away as Vietnam; crashed telephone networks; and hours later, left parts of Chengdu, a city of 10 million, in darkness.

The road to Wenchuan from Chendu was cut off by landslides, state media said, slowing the rescue efforts. A photo from Wenchuan posted on the Internet showed what appeared to have been a six-story building flattened, ripped away from taller buildings of gray concrete. Xinhua reported students were also buried under five other toppled schools in Deyang city.

The communist leadership said late Monday that "thousands" had died, and that besides those in Sichuan, the quake had caused deaths in three other provinces and the mega-city of Chongqing.

Beijing mobilized nearly 8,000 soldiers and police to provide rescue in Sichuan and put the province on the second-highest level of emergency footing. Premier Wen Jiabao, a geologist by training, called the quake "a major geological disaster" and flew into Chengdu to oversee the rescue and relief operations.

The quake was the deadliest since 1976 and posed a challenge to a government already grappling with discontent over high inflation and a widespread uprising among Tibetans in western China while trying to prepare for the Beijing Olympics this August.

Stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen seesawed Monday, dropping on inflation worries and then rising and tapering off over worries about the quake's economic impact to post slight gains.

The epicenter lies on a fault where South Asia pushes against the Eurasian land mass, smashing the Sichuan plain into mountains leading to the Tibetan highlands, near communities that rose up in sometimes violent protests against Chinese rule in mid-March.

Much of the area has been closed to foreign media and travelers since, compounding the difficulties of getting information from the region. Chengdu's airport closed, reopening seven hours later for outbound flights only, and a major railway line to the northeast was ruptured. For much of the day, electric power and telephone networks into Chengdu and other affected areas were down, and panicked residents overloaded parts of the remaining telephone system with calls.

Residents fled into the streets and described an eerie feeling as people stayed outside into the night, fearing another quake. State media citing the Sichuan seismology bureau reported 313 aftershocks.

Although it was difficult to telephone Chengdu, an Israeli student, Ronen Medzini, sent a text message to The Associated Press saying there were power and water outages there.

"Traffic jams, no running water, power outs, everyone sitting in the streets, patients evacuated from hospitals sitting outside and waiting," Medzini said.

A reporter from a U.S. public radio network, National Public Radio, said the earthquake hit around 2:30 p.m. and lasted about three minutes total.

"I was in a building, everybody raced outside when we felt it. The building started to shake, there was a huge rumble, and everybody ran," said NPR reporter Melissa Block in comments aired by the network.

"There's still many, many people out in the streets, they don't want to go back into the buildings, because there are rumors of aftershocks and possible secondary quakes," she said as she drove through Chengdu.

The quake was centered about 6 miles (10 kilometers) below the surface, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site. The depth of the quake made it so wide-ranging, Chinese and Western seismologists said.

State television broadcast tips for anyone trapped in the earthquake. "If you're buried, keep calm and conserve your energy. Seek water and food, and wait patiently for rescue," CCTV said.

The earthquake also rattled buildings in Beijing 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) to the north, causing office towers to evacuate. People ran screaming into the streets in other cities, where many residents said they had never felt an earthquake.

Some 660 miles (1,100 kilometers) to the east in Anhui province, chandeliers swayed in the lobby of the Buckingham Palace Hotel. "We've never felt anything like this our whole lives," said a hotel employee surnamed Zhu.

Patients at the Fuyang People's No. 1 Hospital were evacuated. An hour after the quake, a half-dozen patients in blue-striped pajamas stood outside the hospital. One was laying on a hospital bed in the parking lot.

In Beijing, where hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors are expected for the Olympics, which start on Aug. 8, venues for the games were undamaged.

Li Jiulin, a top engineer on the 91,000-seat National Stadium _ known as the Bird's Nest and the jewel of the Olympics _ was conducting an inspection at the venue when the quake occurred. He told reporters the building was designed to withstand a 8.0 quake.

"The Olympic venues were not affected by the earthquake," said Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing organizing committee. "We considered earthquakes when building those venues."

Premier Wen, after arriving in Chengdu, traveled to Dujiangyan, near the collapsed middle school. One his aircraft, he appealed for people to rally together.

"This is an especially challenging task," state television showed Wen saying, reading from a statement. "In the face of the disaster, what's most important is calmness, confidence, courage and powerful command."

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake is considered a major event, capable of causing widespread damage and injuries in populated areas.

The quake appeared to be the deadliest since the most devastating in modern history, which killed 240,000 people in the city of Tangshan, near Beijing in 1976.

A 1933 quake near the area where Monday's struck killed at least 9,000, according to geologists.

-- AP 2008-05-13

[LaoPo]

About 10,000 people dead in killer earthquake

(chinadaily.com.cn) Updated: 2008-05-13 00:16

The deadly earthquake that rocked Southwestern China and felt all across China and beyond, had left nearly 10,000 people dead by midnight Monday, and the death toll is expected to climb as rescue efforts are intensifying.

And in the neighboring provinces as Gansu and Shaanxi, nearly 200 were confirmed dead, according to a Xinhua report.

Xinhua said in a news flash that in Sichuan Province alone, which was hit the hardest, the death toll there has risen to nearly 10,000.

From:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-05...ent_6678227.htm

LaoPo

[Mosha]

On BBC now reports are nothing heard from 1 city with a population of about 110,000.

[LaoPo]

On BBC now reports are nothing heard from 1 city with a population of about 110,000.

Let's hope it doesn't mean -yet- an even more serious situation; it could have been due to this:

"Over 2300 base stations of China Mobile in Sichuan and nearby areas went offline, while the China Unicom network in Wenchuan broke down entirely"

AMAZING:

There is already a complete new page on Wikipedia about the earthquake, called:

2008 Sichuan Earthquake:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Sichuan_earthquake

LaoPo

[geriatrickid]

Trembling with fear

Bangkok workers scramble to safety after tremors from Chinese quake

About 15 minutes later, the building's alarm rang and everyone rushed to the ground floor through the fire escape. 15 Minutes? Why am I not surprised?

They waited in front of the building for an hour before the building management said it was safe to return to work. The same management that took 15 minutes to warn them? Talk about a leap of faith. Standing in front of skyscraper which has the potential to rain down debris is not a great idea. Standard rule is to get away from potential sources of falling debris.