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10,000 Dead in China Quake, More Feared
by Sanjay Jha | May 12, 2008 at 02:24 pm | 3916 views | 30 comments
UPDATE: 6:04 p.m. EDT May 12, Death toll reaches 10,000
Chinese authorities estimate 10,000 deaths in Sichuan province alone. The earthquake was felt as far as away as Vietnam.
The report came as Premier Wen Jiabao warned that rescuers faced huge obstacles reaching the area worst-hit by the quake that struck on Monday afternoon.
Monday's quake occurred 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 held sometimes violent protests of Chinese rule in mid-March.
Much of the area has been closed to foreign media and travelers since then, compounding the difficulties of getting information. Roads north from Chengdu to the disaster area were sealed off early Tuesday to all but emergency convoys.
The quake was the deadliest since one in 1976 in the city of Tangshan near Beijing that killed 240,000 - although some reports say as many as 655,000 perished - the most devastating in modern history. A 1933 quake near where Monday's struck killed at least 9,000, according to geologists.
UPDATE: 11:43 a.m. EDT May 12, Death toll rises to 8,533
AP reports 8,533 deaths from the Sichuan region (epicentre of the quake).
The official Xinhua News Agency said 8,533 people died in Sichuan and dozens of other deaths were reported elsewhere....
A chemical plant collapsed in Shifang city, to the northeast of the quake's epicenter, burying hundreds of people and sending more than 80 tons of toxic liquid ammonia leaking from the site, state media reported.
UPDATE: 10:53 a.m. EDT May 12, Thousands dead in Earthquake
Chinese authorities have reported 7,600 deaths from a powerful earthquake of 7.8 magnitude in the Sichuan region. Many more deaths are feared.
Maps of the affected regions from the USGS Earthquake Center can be found here
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.
Xinhua cited the Sichuan provincial government as saying 7,651 people died, but the situation in at least two counties remain unclear....
...
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.
There were harrowing reports from the scene of a school collapse in Dujiangyan city - about 100km (60 miles) from the epicentre - where 900 students were buried and 50 dead.
Teenagers buried beneath the rubble of the three-storey Juyuan Middle School building were struggling to break free, while others were crying out for help, state news agency Xinhua reported.
Parents were watching as cranes excavated the site. Villagers rushed to help with the rescue.
Two girls said they escaped because they had "run faster than others".
While the region experienced power-outages and telephone service failures, people were able to access the Internet and first-hand reports have come in through blogs, video-sharing sites and twitter.
For first-hand accounts, Danwei.org noted this link to Summize.com, a Twitter search engine that supports Chinese characters.
English-language twitter posts are also aggregated here.
Global Voices reports that:
Twitter seems to be a top source of breaking details for the moment; Many are writing of difficulties connecting to those at the center of the quake zone over telephone, but the internet seems to still be functioning. Beijing-based tech guru Kaiser Kuo writes that the government Seismological Bureau website is currently inaccessible, presumably from high levels of traffic.Users inwalkedbud and Lyrrael have been posting updates in English, reporting what they can. River Crab Goes Ashore has been collecting live updates on Chinese microblogging service provider Fanfou.
Inwalkedbud writes from Chengdu, quite near the center of the earthquake: “Doesn't seem to be much damage to buildings, but people are shaken up. Electricity/water/gas seems to be working still.”
First-hand accounts reports are streaming in from the Chinese microblog service Fanfou:
http://fanfou.com/statuses/g2QgIe8OWzM
22:25 http://ledao.in/blog.php?blog_id=156
汶川是去九寨沟的必经之路，那里山势陡峭，地表植被因过度开采受损，而岷江流经此地，造成水土流失严重，是个容易发生地质灾害的地方，这次惨了。
"Wenchuan is on the way to Jiuzaigou; the terrain there is all craggy mountains. Due to excess ore extraction all surface plants have been damaged and then you have the Min River passing through there, creating great risk of mudslides and making this an easy place for geological disasters to happen. This has been tragic."
Guangdong
21:19 http://fanfou.com/statuses/LhifhcSKPXw
76年的唐山地震马上就被翻出。现在全国最忙碌最紧张最加班加点的部门不是地震局，不是救灾队，是中宣部
"Soon this will have been bigger than the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. Right now the busiest most nervous department putting in the most extra shifts isn't the Seismological Bureau, not the Disaster Relief Squads, it's the Central Propaganda Department."
http://fanfou.com/statuses/l6XlCAxBJCI
绵阳花盆啥的都碎了，饮水机震倒说塌了好多房子，人都到河堤上去了
"Flowerpots and everything are broken in Mianyang, water coolers shaking, many houses have collapsed, everybody has gone to the banks of the river."
Shanghaiist also provided very detailed coverage of incoming reports on the earthquake here.
In the midst of the chaos and wreckage, an odd-story emerged. Apparently,
Thousands of toads escape onto the streets of Taizhou, Jiangsu Province, apparently because of lack of oxygen in the river waters.
Maps of the affected regions from the USGS Earthquake Center can be found here.
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May 12, 2008 at 02:24 pm by Sanjay Jha, 3916 views, 30 comments
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Comments (30)
at 03:30 on May 12th, 2008
Sanjay Jha, thanks for getting this story out so quickly. It will now show up on the home page for four hours. If new developments justify it, I'll renew this flag for another cycle.
at 03:30 on May 12th, 2008
I think this is an important story and would benefit from other NowPublic contributors working on it. I've flagged it as News Wanted and invite others in relevant locations to look for more evidence.
at 03:32 on May 12th, 2008
I was just about to publish this piece but will add it here instead:
Reports are emerging that a large earthquake has struck the central Chinese Province of Sichuan. According to the China Daily the 7.6 magnitude temblor struck Wenchuan county at 1428 local time. The earthquake was felt as far away as Shanghai where there are unconfirmed reports that some building in the Lujiazui business district were evacuated.
Benoit Florencon, an internet trading entrepeneur in Shanghai said, "I was working at my desk when i suddenly started to feel dizzy and then noticed the roof lamps were moving. We are on the top floor of a 17 storey building, and it felt like the whole building was just marshmallow." More updates to follow...
For more information please see:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-05/12/content_6678081.htm
www.typhoonfury.com
- reply
Zlenderat 03:36 on May 12th, 2008
Sanjay Jha, I like this story. Thanks for getting this out so quickly and for the updates.
at 05:17 on May 12th, 2008
Sanjay Jha, I like this story. It's good stuff.
at 05:57 on May 12th, 2008
thank you sanjay for the story. after reading it i immediately called my son in suzhou in china who was about to leave for shanghai. suzhou is next door to shanghai but he said he had not felt anything over there. 7.8 on the richter scale is pretty bad. let us hope that minimal damage has been done by the earthquake.
at 06:39 on May 12th, 2008
My girlfriend has been reading the Chinese press and told me a school has collapsed in Chongqing killing 4 people. I don't have a link to the source but it I see it I'll post it here.
at 07:29 on May 12th, 2008
Xinhua - China's news agency has a flash saying nearly 900 schoolchildren have been buried in the earthquake...
FLASH: CHINA QUAKE BURIES NEARLY 900 STUDENTS IN SICHUAN PROVINCE
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-05/12/content_8153428.htm
at 16:24 on May 12th, 2008
Thanks for the updates
at 07:53 on May 12th, 2008
107 dead says Reuters -
By Lindsay Beck and Guo Shipeng
BEIJING (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake in southwest China killed
at least 107 people on Monday and buried 900 teenagers in a collapsed
school as the tremor caused buildings to fall and left whole areas cut
off.
The death toll was expected to rise sharply as authorities and
rescue teams make contact with the worst-hit areas of Sichuan province,
where roads and phone lines have been cut off since the 7.8 magnitude
quake struck.
The 900 students were buried in the rubble of a collapsed three-storey school building in the Sichuan city of Dujiangyan.
Rescuers were trying to retrieve survivors but details were still sketchy.
The 107 casualties occurred in the provinces of Sichuan, Gansu and
Yunnan as well as Chongqing, a municipality of 30 million people that
neighbors Sichuan, state media said.
The quake's epicenter was in the nearby Sichuan county of Wenchuan
and its force caused buildings to sway across China and as far away as
the Thai capital Bangkok.
Four more children died in a separate school collapse in Lirang township of Chongqing.
Another 10 died and 14 were seriously injured in the northwestern province of Gansu, Xinhua news agency's online edition said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSSP23973420080512
For constant Twitter updates see here:
http://summize.com/search?q=earthquake
at 09:34 on May 12th, 2008
I am in Nanning and didn't feel a thing. I've been in earthquakes having experienced several in California. Nanning is said to have been about 2.0...and I felt nothing.
at 09:56 on May 12th, 2008
Thousands now being reported killed in just one county alone. BBC frontpage breaking news article - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7396400.stm
at 10:02 on May 12th, 2008
Sanjay Jha, great info, well done, this story is good stuff.
at 10:33 on May 12th, 2008
Thanks to all of you that are contributing to this story. When breaking news occurs, I turn to Now Public for up to date news.
at 10:55 on May 12th, 2008
Sanjay Jha, I like this story. It's good stuff.
at 11:20 on May 12th, 2008
Sanjay Jha, I like this story. It's good stuff. One wonders Modern Technology and Seismic Devices could not have picked up even the smallest tremors to alert China of the impending Earthquake, certainly a sad day during the Olympic Events.
at 12:03 on May 12th, 2008
ED NOTE: This is an important, continuing story, so I'm bringing this article current and updating the timestamp.
at 13:46 on May 12th, 2008
Those of us who live in Shanghai felt the Szechuan earthquake here this afternoon at about 2:45.
Actually, I was at the dentist when it happened and didn't feel anything, so when I came
out, I was puzzled about why so many people were standing around,
looking up at the buildings. At first I thought it was a fire or
someone threatening to jump, but I didn't see anything. Then I asked
someone, who told me there had been an earthquake. For the next half hour
or so I stood around in the park on Zunyi Lu (in western Shanghai) with several thousand
people who had been evacuated from their offices or didn't dare go
home. At one point, some clouds moved quickly in the sky, in back of a
tall building, giving it the appearance of swaying. Some people
panicked, and ther was a stampede of like one hundred people who ran in
the opposite direction. One girl fell down. Nothing else bad happened
here, other than not being able to get a phone connection because too
many people were dialing out at the same time. Friends throughout the city who work in tall buildings report either feeling them sway or having some sort sensation that was really odd. Workers on the famous Bund and in the newly developed Pudong area were evacuated from their offices. On the other hand, at my university and in my neighborhood, with mostly contains building that are at most six stories high, didn't report feeling a thing.
at 14:05 on May 12th, 2008
Thank you for the detailed account. Did you feel any aftershocks? Please keep us updated on news and stories from your neighbourhood and community. Thanks again.
at 14:19 on May 12th, 2008
Sanjay Jha, I like this story. It's good stuff.
- reply
punkkafariat 14:45 on May 12th, 2008
Taking a moment to be thankful in the wake of one of the biggest earthquakes in China's history.
punkkafari has contributed a photo to this story.
at 15:50 on May 12th, 2008
Latest releases:
http://apressjamaica.wordpress.com/2008/05/12/jamaica-gets-involved-in-china-earthquake-aid/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO3CpAatIVQ
Tommy Wal has contributed a photo to this story.
at 17:54 on May 12th, 2008
Tommy, thanks for the links. Please keep us updated on latest developments.
at 17:35 on May 12th, 2008
Will there be a tsunami? What, if any, earthquake warning systems are there in place?
Thanks for the updates. I will turn to NowPublic too.
at 19:01 on May 12th, 2008
I've just been told that province is where the Pandas are? I wonder how they too have been affected.
at 22:38 on May 12th, 2008
Helping donations services have been started in many cities including Dalian City in north east of china where students from different parts of the city are coming in and placing the donations. More responces are coming from the effected area.
at 03:25 on May 13th, 2008
Sanjay Jha, I like this story. It's good stuff.
at 05:08 on May 13th, 2008
Chinese health ministry sends 10 medical teams to quake-hit areas
Beijing (ANTARA News/Xinhua) - China`s Health Ministry said Monday it had sent 10 emergency medical teams to quake-hit Wenchuan County in southwest China`s Sichuan Province.
The teams comprised medical and epidemic prevention experts from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and local health bureaus of Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangdong and Shandong, a ministry spokesman said.
The ministry said it was organizing more back-up teams to help with the rescue efforts.
The Health Ministry urged the teams to assess casualties and the medical needs of the victims and to make arrangements accordingly.
It also promised to closely monitor the situation in affected provinces and to coordinate the medical relief work.
So far there has been more than 7,000 injured people hospitalized for further treatment, according to local health department.
The Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) urged local Party organs and governments to mobilize more officials to get on front line and engage in disaster relieving.
The Ministry of Education has ordered local educational authorities to mobilize schools especially elementary schools and kindergartens to make preparations for self-protection and helping each other for possible aftershocks.
On Monday evening, ...
China quake kills nearly 10,000 in Sinchuan
at 04:14 on May 14th, 2008
Right now, the biggest problem is getting aid to people. There were a lot of landslides in the area (which is mountainous), and several major roads are impassable. Soldiers and other rescue workers are going in on foot. There was a plan to have people parachute into badly affected area, but the rain made that impossible last night.
Another thing about the blocked roads is that it is making it hard to get digging and rescue equipment where it is needed. In some areas, rescuers just have their hands and improvised equipment to work with.
- reply
noinputat 23:30 on May 19th, 2008
i was in Xian at the time of the earthquake and about 10 minutes from boarding a plane. they evacuated the entire airport to the tarmac. i think i was about 300 miles away from the epicenter. it was massive hysteria in the terminal.
noinput has contributed a photo to this story.