|
China Hit by 7.9-Magnitude Quake; More Than
8,700 Die By Aaron Sheldrick and Eugene Tang
May 12, 2008 (Bloomberg) -- China was hit by a magnitude-7.9
earthquake, the nation's strongest in 58 years, killing more
than 8,700 people. The temblor in Sichuan province shook
buildings in Beijing, more than 1,500 kilometers (930 miles)
away.
The quake struck at 2:28 p.m., 90 kilometers
west-northwest of the central city of Chengdu, the U.S.
Geological Survey said. The temblor struck at a depth of 10
kilometers. A magnitude-6 quake struck the area, home to 11
million people, about 15 minutes later. Chengdu is the
capital of Sichuan, site of 40 percent of China's gas
deposits and its largest panda reserve.
``The epicenter of today's quake was shallow, which means
it released more destructive energy,'' Zhang Guomin, a
researcher at the
China Seismology Bureau, told the state-run Xinhua News
Agency. ``We have to guard against mudslides and collapsing
buildings.''
The death toll in the province is at least 8,700, Xinhua
said, with as many as 5,000 killed and 10,000 injured in one
county, Beichuan. Rescuers recovered at least 50 bodies from
the debris of a high school in the city of Dujiangyan, about
100 kilometers from the epicenter, Xinhua said. As many as
900 students were buried in the rubble.
Older Buildings
The death toll may rise, Deng Changwen, a spokesman for
the Sichuan provincial seismological bureau, was quoted as
saying by Xinhua. Troops and a 180-man rescue team have been
sent to Wenchuan, one of the closest population centers to
the quake, Xinhua said. The quake was originally reported as
magnitude 7.8 before it was revised by the USGS today.
``The rescue efforts will be focused on the older parts
of the city, where there are older buildings that aren't
well reinforced,'' Deng said.
Five other schools collapsed in the province's Deyang
City, leaving an unknown number of students buried, Xinhua
said. Four students were killed and at least 100 were
injured when two schools collapsed in Liangping county of
Chongqing municipality, adjacent to Sichuan. Chongqing is
about 350 kilometers from the epicenter of the temblor.
Buildings in Beijing shook for more than three minutes
and traffic stopped. Construction cranes ceased work, while
hundreds of people were seen scrambling to get out of
buildings including the China World Tower, one of the
tallest structures in the Chinese capital.
Felt in Bangkok
There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage in
the capital. Shaking was felt as far as Hong Kong and
Bangkok in Thailand, 1,950 kilometers away.
The quake sparked panic in cities and towns across
Sichuan and other central provinces, Xinhua said. No damage
was reported at the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest
hydroelectric dam, Xinhua said.
The quake damaged more than 2,000 China Mobile Ltd. base
stations, Vice President
Sha Yuejia said in an interview broadcast on state-run
China Central Television.
The Shanghai Stock Exchange said trading in Sichuan
Changhong Electric Co., Chongqing Iron & Steel Co. and 43
other listed companies based in Sichuan province and
Chongqing city was suspended until they provide investors
with trading updates.
The quake may help fuel increases in corn and soybeans
after the disaster threatened to disrupt domestic supplies,
analysts said.
Transportation Disruption
``The earthquake in China is going to cause major
disruption in transportation,'' which could boost demand for
U.S. grain and meat imports, said
Roy Huckabay, an executive vice president for the Linn
Group in Chicago. ``Chinese soybean prices soared
overnight,'' a sign of increased demand for available
supplies, Huckabay said.
Chinese carriers including China Eastern Airlines Corp.
halted flights to some cities hit by the quake.
Chinese Premier
Wen Jiabao. who described the earthquake as a
``disaster,'' called for calm and ordered immediate relief
work, according to state media, while President
Hu Jintao issued an order for an immediate response from
government agencies, according to Xinhua.
Today's earthquake was the world's strongest since a 7.9-
magnitude temblor
struck Indonesia in September, according to the USGS. It
was the biggest to hit
China since a magnitude-8.6 quake struck Tibet in 1950,
killing 1,526 people. China's deadliest disaster was a
7.5-magnitude
quake that killed 250,000 people in northeastern China's
Tangshan in 1976.
The U.S. Geological Survey defines an earthquake of
magnitude 7 or more as ``major,'' and one above 8 as
``great.''
Bush Comments
There are 17 quakes measuring 7 to 7.9 annually worldwide
on average, USGS said on its Web site, with five occurring
so far this year. On average, there is one temblor annually
measuring 8 or more.
``I extend my condolences to those injured and to the
families of the victims of today's earthquake in China's
Sichuan province,'' U.S. President
George W. Bush said in a statement issued by the White
House. ``I am particularly saddened by the number of
students and children affected by this tragedy. The thoughts
and prayers of the American people are with the Chinese
people, especially those directly affected. The United
States stands ready to help in any way possible.''
Hundreds of employees were evacuated from skyscrapers in
the Lujiazui district of Shanghai, the city's financial
center, where the stock exchange and banks including
Citigroup Inc. and HSBC Holdings Plc have offices. No damage
was reported.
Sichuan produced about 22 percent of the nation's natural
gas output in 2006, according to China National Petroleum
Corp. and BP Plc's annual energy report.
Power, Water Supplies
PetroChina Co., a unit of China National Petroleum,
hasn't yet received any reports of damage at its fields in
the earthquake zone, spokesman
Mao Zefeng said.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. closed outlets in Chengdu after the
shaking knocked goods off shelves, Dong Yuguo, a spokesman,
said by telephone. Power and water supplies inside the
stores were also down, he said.
Ford Motor Co. Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. said
there was no immediate damage to their factories in Sichuan,
Chongqing and other areas.
The Ministry of Railways said it hadn't received any
reports of interruptions to services, Yang Xue, an official,
said.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Aaron Sheldrick in Tokyo at
asheldrick@bloomberg.net;
Eugene Tang in Beijing at
eugenetang@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: May 12, 2008 14:17 EDT
|
China Earthquake Eyewitness:
'We All Thought, Is the Building Going to Hold?'
Monday, May 12, 2008
BEIJING, China —
J.R. Wu was in her office on the 20th floor when the earth began
to move.
“The building started swaying,” Wu told
FOXNews.com from her home in Beijing Monday night. “We all
thought, Is the building going to hold?”
The high-rise held. Wu, Dow Jones' Beijing
bureau chief since 2005, was in a meeting with 20 of her
colleagues Monday when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck central
China, hundreds of miles away.
According to state media reports, at least
8,500 people were killed.
In Beijing, the earth started to rumble at
about 2:35 p.m. local time.
“The shaking lasted for several minutes,"
Wu said. "We felt nauseous."
The earthquake, which hit Sichuan province,
sent thousands of people rushing out of buildings and into the
streets in Beijing and Shanghai, hundreds of miles from the
epicenter. The temblor was felt as far away as Pakistan, Vietnam
and Thailand.
The Xinhua News Agency said 80 percent of
the buildings Sichuan's Beichuan county had collapsed.
Rescuers had recovered at least 50 bodies
from the debris of a school building in Juyuan township, about 60
miles from the epicenter.
"Many of my colleagues started running to
the window as the building began to shake," Wu said. "We saw
people leaving buildings. They were evacuating for safety
reasons."
Wu said that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is
leading the rescue effort for the earthquake and "has already
visited ground zero."
In a statement issued on his plane en route
to the disaster area, Wen called for "calm and confidence."
"The government is taking this very
seriously. They’re very concerned," Wu said. "I know that the
government is pledging relief funds. It’s not clear what the total
is going to be at this time."
The Associated
Press contributed to this story.
|
|
Worry and hope as news trickles out of earthquake zone
BEIJING, May 12
,2008 (Xinhua) -- After eight
hours of frantic worry, Ai Fumei finally managed to get news
of her relatives in Wenchuan county, the epicenter of the
deadly earthquake that rocked southwest China.
"My uncle fell off a ladder when he tried to pack up
the tiles on the roof, which were falling down in the
earthquake. He is in hospital, but as power in the county
was cut, the doctor couldn't properly examine him," said Ai,
who works in the northwestern Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
She received the news by way of a cousin in Henan,
who told her the uncle's home now had cracks in the walls
and the kitchen had collapsed.
The family was living outdoors, but 24-year-old Ai
believed they were luckier than other villagers: her elder
brother Ai Furong said that most of the earthen houses were
demolished.
Ai's hometown was Wenchuan, which has a population of
116,000 and lies about 159 kilometers from Chengdu,
provincial capital of Sichuan. She had found it impossible
to contact her family phone or mobile phone, until in the
evening, she received short massage from Ai Xiufang in
Henan.
She was also unable to reach her mother in Chengdu
until about 9 p.m., when she heard that many other people
were living outdoors, and her mother "planned to sleep on
the grass in a park".
Bai Yang, 29, who works for an advertising company,
was in Chengdu on business when the quake occurred.
"I was working in the exhibition center when all of a
sudden, I heard noises from underground just like subway
trains and seconds later I felt a tremor, said Bai.
"It was shaking so vehemently that we feared glass
would fall." About 20 seconds later he realized it was an
earthquake and rushed outside with his colleagues.
"Some balconies of old buildings collapsed," he said.
"On the streets many people are sitting or lying on
newspapers or blankets. Shops are closed. The price of a
kebab has soared from 0.2 yuan to 2 yuan."
Bai was scheduled to return Beijing on Tuesday
evening. "But I am not sure now whether my flight will take
off."
A driver from the Sichuan provincial seismological
bureau had been on the 312 national highway near the
Wenchuan county when the tremor occurred.
"I heard someone calling 'earthquake' and felt my car
swaying. Rocks rolled off the hills and dust darkened the
sky," he recalled.
Bai Ruixue, a journalist in Beijing, said, "I still
couldn't reach my parents in Mianyang." One person was
confirmed killed in the city after a water tower collapsed.
She had spoken with her father about an hour after
the catastrophe, but was cut off one minute later. "He told
me that windows were all broken in our apartment, which is
on the first floor," she said.
"My parents are old and where could they live now?"
asked Bai Ruixue.
Xinhua reporters had attempted to go to Wenchuan, but
were stopped at Dujiangyan city 100 kilometers away, where
roads were blocked by rocks.
Communication links to the county are still cut, cell
phone calls are met with the engaged tone.
Zhang Jun'an, vice chief executive officer of China
Unicom, said two networks in Wenchuan were crippled. "The
network in Chengdu is okay, but overloaded," he was quoted
by CCTV as saying.
China Unicom's staff to Wenchuan were blocked in
Dujiangyan as well.
Measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, the earthquake at
2:28 p.m. claimed more than 7,651 lives in Sichuan Province
alone and injured hundreds. It is China's worst quake since
1976, when an earthquake in Tangshan, Hebei Province, killed
242,000 people.
"Although I won't sleep tonight, I feel some relief
now," said Ai Fumei in Ningxia.
Editor: Mu Xuequan
|
|
SW China earthquake disrupts railway transportation
BEIJING, May 12, 2008 (Xinhua) -- Monday's
strong earthquake in southwest China's Sichuan Province have
caused multiple landslides and collapses along railway lines
near the provincial capital Chengdu, leaving 180 trains
stranded on the rails.
Thirty-one passenger and 149 cargo trains were
stranded on the Baoji-Chengdu line, the Chengdu-Kunming
line, the Chengdu-Chongqing line and their branch lines
linking Chengdu with the rest of the country.
At least 15 cases of landslides and collapses had so
far been reported along rail tracks, with 34 railway
stations on the Baoji-Chengdu Railway losing power supplies
due to the earthquake, Wang Yongping, spokesman of the
Ministry of Railways said Monday night.
Wang quoted one case involving the cargo train No.
21043 on the Baoji-Chengdu Railway, which went off the rails
and caught fire in a tunnel near Huixian County, in Gansu
Province, as the tunnel began to collapse. One man was
injured during the incident.
The Railways Ministry has dispatched rescue teams to
the No. 21043 train, and sent repair teams to check railway
facilities near quake-hit areas.
All trains running near quake-hit areas have been
ordered to halt in open areas, and passengers trains heading
for quake-hit areas are awaiting orders to turn back.
The quake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale jolted
Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province at 2:28 p.m., resulting in
more than 7,651 deaths reported so far. The epicenter was
about 100 kilometers from the provincial capital.
Tremors were also reported in over half of China's
provinces and municipalities, the China Seismological Bureau
said.
Editor: Mu Xuequan
|
|
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Quake engulfs 900 children
5:00AM Tuesday May 13, 2008
Nearly 900 students were buried in China's Sichuan province
last night by a huge earthquake.
The official Xinhua news agency said the students were in a
high school in Juyuan Township, part of Dujiangyan City, in Sichuan
province.
The agency said teenagers buried beneath the rubble of the
three-story building were struggling to break free, and others were
crying out for help.
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".
In a separate incident, four children died when two elementary
schools in Chongqing municipality collapsed.
More than 100 students were injured, two seriously.
Xinhua said the early confirmed death toll from the quake was
107, with 34 injured. But the toll looks likely to soar as
authorities and rescue teams make contact with areas where roads and
phone lines have been cut by the tremor.
The 7.8-magnitude quake sent shocks and panic across large
parts of the country.
One person was killed when the quake toppled a water tower in
neighbouring Sichuan province where the earthquake was centred.
The airport in the provincial capital, Chengdu, was closed and
roads were clogged with traffic after the earthquake.
Rain was also predicted for the disaster area.
The quake's epicentre was in the Aba prefecture in Sichuan
province, 92km northwest of Chengdu, at 2.28pm [6.28pm NZT], the US
Geological Survey said on its website.
Calls to Chengdu did not go through as panicked residents
quickly overloaded the telephone system.
"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.
But Israeli student Ronen Medzini sent a text message to the
Associated Press telling of power and water cuts in the city.
"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.
The earthquake also rattled buildings in Beijing 1500km to the
north.
Many Beijing office towers were evacuated, including the
building housing the media offices for the organisers of the Olympic
Games, which start in August.
The local government of the Aba prefecture said the earthquake
had caused injuries, cracked and collapsed buildings, and damaged
mountain roads.
In Beijing, thousands of people evacuated or were ordered out
of buildings.
James McGregor, an American business consultant who was inside
the LG Towers in Beijing's business district, said: "The floor was
moving underneath me.
"I've lived in Taipei and California and I've been through
quakes. This is the most I've ever felt."
People ran screaming into the streets in other cities.
In Fuyang, 1100km to the east in Anhui province, chandeliers
in the lobby of the Buckingham Palace Hotel swayed, and patients at
the Fuyang People's No. 1 Hospital were evacuated.
In Shanghai, skyscrapers swayed and most office occupants went
rushing into the streets.
The quake was felt as far away as Thailand, Vietnam and
Pakistan.
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake is considered a major event,
capable of causing widespread damage and injuries in populated
areas.
- REUTERS, AP
|
China
moves quickly in quake
zone
The
country's deadliest quake
in three decades hit
central China Monday.
By
Peter Ford
| Staff writer of The
Christian Science
Monitor
from the May 13, 2008
edition
Beijing - – As the
death toll from Monday's
earthquake mounted, China
threw its Army into rescue
operations – reflecting
the priority that Beijing
has increasingly put on
efficient disaster relief.
The country appears to
be well prepared for such
an operation, says Roger
Musson, a seismologist at
the British Geological
Survey in Edinburgh. "They
are very good at putting
together a disaster relief
plan rather quickly."
More than 6,000
soldiers and militarized
police were dispatched to
the disaster area,
carrying out standing
orders in the event of an
earthquake, a military
spokesman said.
The next few days will
reveal to what extent
buildings in this part of
central China were
equipped to withstand a
disaster such as this –
the country's deadliest
since 1976 with at least
8,500 dead as of press
time.
Prime Minister Wen
Jiabao, who flew to
Chengdu, the provincial
capital of Sichuan, less
than two hours after the
quake hit, told reporters
en route that government
leaders have "asked
officials at all levels to
be at the front line of
the fighting the
earthquake and lead the
people in their rescue
work."
"I believe we can
certainly overcome the
disaster with the public
and the military working
together," he added in a
televised statement.
Vast
improvements in disaster
relief
China's annual
buffeting from typhoons
has led the authorities to
build an efficient
disaster relief structure,
according to Xue Lan,
professor of public
administration at
Beijing's Tsinghua
University.
"One dramatic
improvement is in
life-saving" says
Professor Xue. "Death
tolls have been falling in
recent years even though
typhoons have been getting
fiercer. China is doing
much better than it used
to, and than other
developing countries
[are]."
As well as passing a
special law on emergency
management last year,
setting out the
government's
responsibilities, China
has built a regional
network of emergency
management offices,
reporting to the State
Council, which acts as the
government's cabinet.
In a Category 1
disaster, as Monday's
quake was declared, local
officials are authorized
to ignore normal chains of
command and report
directly to the top levels
of government, according
to Mao Shoulong, professor
of public policy at Renmin
University in Beijing.
In addition to the
thousands of soldiers and
police dispatched to the
epicenter in Wenchuan
county, emergency medical
teams were sent from major
cities on the east coast
to the quake zone.
Their departure
displayed a speed of
official response that
critics said had been
lacking during China's
last natural disaster,
blizzards that gripped the
south of the country last
January.
A
magnitude of 7.8
The epicenter of
Monday's 7.8-magnitude
earthquake was in Sichuan,
about 57 miles northwest
of the provincial capital
of Chengdu. It hit in the
middle of the afternoon –
when classes and offices
were full.
At one school about 60
miles from the epicenter,
nearly 900 students were
trapped under rubble, the
Associated Press reported,
citing Chinese state
media. At least seven
other schools in the
region had collapsed,
according to Xinhua, as
well as chemical plants
and at least one hospital.
As many as 10,000 in
Beichuan Qiang Autonomous
County were feared injured
and 80 percent of the
buildings there had been
destroyed, Xinhua
reported. There had been
more than 300 aftershocks,
state television said.
Nightfall, severed
communications, and
blocked roads have
hampered rescue efforts.
The overall death toll
from this earthquake –
with tremors reaching as
far away as Pakistan,
Vietnam and Thailand – is
expected to rise in coming
days.
"Anything greater than
[a magnitude of] 7 is very
significant," says Mike
Haggerty, a seismologist
Weston Observatory at
Boston College in Weston,
Mass. "The magnitude is
7.8, and that's the
exactly the same magnitude
of the 1976 Tangshen
earthquake." About one
quarter of a million
people died in that
natural disaster thirty
year ago.
The key difference
between the quakes on
Monday and in 1976 was
location, says Mr. Musson,
the seismologist.
"The 1976 earthquake
occurred extremely close
to Tangshan. The city was
really sitting on top of
the fault.... The good
aspect is that this
occurred in a remote area.
The bad aspect is the
population has increased,"
he says.
The shallowness of
Monday's earthquake will
also contribute to the
extent of the damage, Mr.
Haggerty warns.
Peter Smith
contributed from Boston.
Wire material was also
used.
|
China quake buries hundreds, kills at least
8,533
Updated Mon. May.
12 2008 3:35 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
The death toll is expected to rise dramatically in China's
Sichuan province after a massive earthquake struck the region
Monday morning.
The official number of dead is listed at 8,533, but there
are fears the figure will increase due to the number of
buildings that have suffered major damage. In Sichuan's Beichan
county alone, about 80 per cent of buildings have collapsed.
Ten thousand people are estimated to be injured, according
to the Xinhua news agency.
The 7.9-magnitude quake -- originally estimated by the
U.S. Geological Survey to be 7.8 -- struck at 2:28 p.m. local
time, when office buildings, factories and schools were full.
Nearly 900 Chinese students were feared buried after two schools
collapsed in the municipality of Chongqing.
Xinhua reported that four of the dead were ninth-grade
students killed when their high school in Jutuan township about
100 kilometres from the quake eipcentre, collapsed.
Photos showed cranes trying to remove the rubble of the
collapsed building, though there were no estimates of how many
more students may have been killed.
There were reports of teenagers struggling to get free of
the rubble of the three-story building, as others cried out for
help.
The quake made buildings sway in Beijing, about 2,000
kilometres away, and was also felt in Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam
and as far away as Pakistan.
"We're really in the very early stages," Francis Markus of
the Red Cross Federation told Canada AM from Beijing. "We don't
know what the situation is at the heart of these
earthquake-stricken areas."
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake's epicentre is
92 kilometres northwest of Chengdu, Sichuan's capital, and 10
kilometres below the surface.
Ten million people live in Chengdu, best known for its
giant panda breeding centre. Sichuan province is also home to
about 1,200 pandas, which constitute about 80 per cent of the
surviving panda population in the wild.
The joint UN-European Commission's Global Disaster Alert
and Coordination System, or GDAC, said a quake of this magnitude
could cause damage up to 97 kilometres from the epicentre.
Xinhua said the quake occurred in a sparsely populated,
mountainous area, with about 110,000 people living there.
In Aba prefecture of Sichuan province, government
officials said buildings had cracked and collapsed. Roads
through the mountains were damaged.
Calls to emergency numbers in Chengdu went unanswered. A
resident whom The Associated Press reached by telephone said
there was no sign of damages.
Xinhua said China's Premier Wen Jiabao is heading to the
worst-hit area.
Markus said the Red Cross and Chinese government are
sending planes with experts and equipment to the disaster area.
The quake came as China prepared to host the Olympic Games
this summer. International Olympic Committee President Jacques
Rogge wrote to China's president, telling the Chinese people
that "The Olympic Movement is at your side, especially during
these difficult moments."
As news trickled in throughout the day about the extent of
the damage, Rogge said: "This appears to be a major disaster,
the scale of which is only just becoming apparent."
With files from The Associated Press
|
|
CHONGQING -- China's most devastating
earthquake in three decades killed nearly 9,000 people on
Monday, with the toll likely to soar as authorities struggle
to reach casualties in large areas cut off from relief.
The earthquake that hit China's southwestern province of
Sichuan killed 8,533 people, the official Xinhua news agency
said on Monday, citing the provincial government.
The epicentre of the 7.8 magnitude quake was in a
mountainous region about 100 km from Sichuan's capital
Chengdu, a bustling city of 10 million.
"The road started swaying as I was driving. Rocks fell
from the mountains, with dust darkening the sky over the
valley," a driver for Sichuan's seismological bureau was
quoted by Xinhua as saying, as he was driving near the
epicentre.
The quake hit in the middle of the school day, toppling
eight schools in the region. Chemical plants and at least one
hospital were also flattened, trapping many hundreds, state
media said.
About 900 teenagers were buried in the rubble of a
collapsed three-storey school building in the Sichuan city of
Dujiangyan.
Local villagers had already helped dozens of students
out of the ruins and five cranes were excavating the site as
anxious parents looked on, Xinhua said.
"Some buried teenagers were struggling to break loose
from underneath the ruins while others were crying out for
help," the agency said.
Nightfall, severed communications and blocked roads have
hampered rescue efforts and the death toll was likely to rise
significantly.
An estimated 3,000 to 5,000 people were killed in
Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County alone, state media said.
As many as 10,000 in Beichuan were feared injured and 80
percent of the buildings there had been destroyed, Xinhua
said. There had been more than 300 aftershocks, state
television said.
Beichuan's population is 161,000, meaning about one in
10 residents were killed or injured. The county is a part of
Mianyang city, and about 160 km (100 miles) from the
provincial capital, Chengdu.
Hundreds of people were buried in two collapsed chemical
plants in Shifang in Sichuan, the online edition of the
official Xinhua news agency said.
About 6,000 people were evacuated, Xinhua said, adding
that more than 80 tonnes of highly corrosive liquid ammonia
had leaked.
Hundreds of people were buried under rubble in Shifang
in Sichuan as several schools, factories and dormitories
collapsed during the quake, the official Xinhua news agency
said.
Hundreds were also buried under rubble in a collapsed
hospital in Dujiangyan city in Sichuan.
The quake's epicentre was in nearby Wenchuan, a
mountainous county of about 100,000 people, but its force was
enough to cause buildings to sway across China and as far away
as the Thai capital Bangkok.
The Sichuan plain is one of China's most fertile
agricultural areas, but it relies heavily on an irrigation
system linked to the 2,000-year-old Dujiangyan flood control
works.
Which means the quake could exacerbate inflation,
already running at the fastest pace in 12 years.
The quake is also the worst to hit China in 32 years
since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake in northeastern China where
up to 300,000 died.
It has come at a bad time for China, which holds the
Olympic Games in August, and has been struggling to keep a lid
on unrest in ethnic Tibetan areas and the heavily Muslim
northeastern Xinjiang region.
The U.S. Geological Survey said on its website (http://earthquake.usgs.gov)
the main quake struck at 0628 GMT at a depth of 10 km (6
miles).
In Beijing and Shanghai, office workers poured into the
streets as the tremor hit. In the capital, there was no
visible damage and the showpiece Bird's Nest Olympic stadium
was unscathed.
Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in Chengdu and President Hu
Jintao ordered an "all-out" rescue effort, Xinhua reported.
Thousands of army troops and paramilitary People's Armed
Police carrying medical supplies were also headed to the
region, state television said. But a landslide had blocked a
mountain road leading to Wenchuan, preventing troops from
reaching the scene, state radio said.
In Washington, President George W. Bush said the United
States was ready to help.
"I extend my condolences to those injured and to the
families of the victims of today's earthquake. I am
particularly saddened by the number of students and children
affected by this tragedy.
"The United States stands ready to help in any way
possible," Mr. Bush said in a statement.
At least 45 had died in Chengdu, Xinhua said, citing an
official with the local seismological bureau. Another 600
people were injured, 58 of them critically, in the sprawling
city.
Some 57 have been confirmed killed in northern Shaanxi,
48 in northwestern Gansu, 50 in Chongqing municipality, and
one in Yunnan province, Xinhua said, citing the national
headquarters of disaster relief.
© Thomson Reuters 2008
|
Biq Quake Takes out Mobile Network in Chengdu
Steven Schwankert, IDG News Service
Monday, May 12, 2008 8:17 AM PDT
An earthquake registering 7.8 on the Richter Scale knocked
out mobile phone service in the western Chinese city of
Chengdu, although fixed-line networks remained in service,
Chinese state television reported Monday afternoon.
About 2,300 base stations were affected by power outages or
transmission problems, China Mobile's Sichuan office told the
state-run Xinhua News Agency, adding that repairs were under
way. China is the nation's and world's largest mobile service
provider.
Service was affected in both southwestern Sichuan province,
and in northwestern Shaanxi province, Xinhua reported,
although those two areas do not abut. China Mobile also said
that call volume had increased by 10 times what is normal but
connections were down by half as a result of the earthquake.
Amateur Video
China's online video sites were quick to receive footage shot
during the earthquake by users, footage that did not appear on
CCTV's nightly newscast, which is carried by most major
channels. One
clip,
labeled "Chengdu Earthquake," showed students in a classroom
or dormitory room hiding under their desks, as debris falls
from the ceiling. "Don't move, don't move, it's ok," the
photographer says to a student who emerges from cover too
quickly. Footage from Chengdu would also seem to confirm the
availability of Internet service there.
The semiconductor industry and China's growing
software outsourcing industry take advantage of
Chengdu's status as China's fifth-largest city and
southwest China's largest academic center.
Although the Chengdu region is not
considered a major manufacturing center for
semiconductors, Intel began semiconductor
manufacturing there in 2005, and employs 600 at a
testing and assembly facility in Chengdu.
"We are now determining if this has
implications for Intel's operation in Chengdu. Our
first priority is the safety of our people," said
Danny Cheung, an Intel spokesman based in
Singapore, in an e-mail.
Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC)
also operates a testing and assembly facility
there, according to its Web site. Sources said
that SMIC evacuated a fabrication plant and halted
production as a result of the quake.
Aftershocks Continue
The earthquake occurred at 2:28 p.m. Beijing
local time. The State Seismological Bureau (SSB)
originally reported the quake registered at 7.6 on
the Richter Scale, but later upgraded it to 7.8.
The epicenter was approximately 55 kilometers (33
miles) northwest of Chengdu in Wenchuan County.
Shaking lasted for approximately one minute,
dislodging lights from ceiling fixtures and
knocking over water coolers, a reporter told CCTV.
CCTV did not report aftershocks, but the
U.S. Geological Service's
Web site reported at least 10 by 8:45 p.m.
Beijing local time. The quake was felt as far away
as coastal Zhejiang province and Beijing. Beijing
experienced a separate 3.9 earthquake at 2:35
p.m., the SSB confirmed.
CCTV's first pictures of the event,
broadcast at 4:23 p.m. Beijing time, showed people
talking on mobile handsets, although it is not
known which networks they were using at the time.
They showed traffic moving in the street, and a
woman with her head bleeding getting into a car.
Footage broadcast during the nightly newscast
showed visible cracks in some residential
buildings, but no collapsed structures or pictures
of people injured or killed by the earthquake.
The strength of Monday's 7.8 earthquake
equals China's most famous temblor in modern
history, a July 1976 event in Tangshan, east of
Beijing. Estimated deaths for the Tangshan
earthquake range from over 200,000 to more than
700,000. So far, 107 people are confirmed dead as
a result of the earthquake, and as many as 900
children may be buried at a high school in an
unspecified location, according to the state-run
Xinhua News Agency.
(Sumner Lemon in Singapore contributed to
this report.)
|
Death toll in China earthquake up to nearly 9,000
By WILLIAM FOREMAN
5-12-08
CHENGDU, China (AP) — One of the worst earthquakes to hit
China in three decades killed nearly 9,000 people Monday, trapped
about 900 students under the rubble of their school and caused a
toxic chemical leak, state media reported.
The 7.9-magnitude earthquake devastated a hilly region of
small cities and towns in central China. The official Xinhua News
Agency said 8,533 people died in Sichuan province and more than 200
others were killed in three other provinces and the mega-city of
Chongqing.
Xinhua said 80 percent of the buildings had collapsed in
Sichuan province's Beichuan county after the quake, raising fears
that the overall death toll could increase sharply.
State media said a chemical plant in Shifang city had
cratered, burying hundreds of people and spilling more than 80 tons
of toxic liquid ammonia from the site.
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 Vietnam and Thailand.
It 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.
The quake hit about 60 miles northwest of Chengdu — a city of
3.75 million — in the middle of the afternoon when classrooms and
office towers were full. When it hit shortly before 2:30 p.m., the
quake rumbled for nearly three minutes, witnesses said, driving
people into the streets in panic.
"It was really scary to be on the 26th floor in something like
that," said Tom Weller, a 49-year-old American oil and gas
consultant staying at the Holiday Inn. "You had to hold on to
something like that or you'd fall over. It shook for so long and so
violently, you wondered how long the building would be able to stand
this."
While most buildings in the city held up, those in the
countryside tumbled. On the outskirts of Chongqing city, a school in
Liangping county collapsed, killing at least five people. Residents
said teachers kept the children inside, thinking it was safer.
Landslides left the roads impassable even early Tuesday,
causing the government to order soldiers into the area on foot,
state television said, while heavy rains prevented four military
helicopters from landing.
Mianyang city ordered all able-bodied males under 50 years old
to take water and tools and walk or drive to Beichuan, where most of
the buildings had collapsed.
Nervous Chengdu residents spent the night outside or headed to
the suburbs. State media citing the Sichuan seismology bureau,
reported 313 aftershocks.
"We can't get to sleep. We're afraid of the earthquake. We're
afraid of all the shaking," said 52-year-old factory worker Huang Ju,
who took her ailing, elderly mother out of the Jinjiang District
People's Hospital.
Outside the hospital, Huang sat in a wheelchair wrapped in
blankets while her mother, who was ill, slept in a hospital bed next
to her.
The earthquake hit one of the last homes of the giant panda at
the Wolong Nature Reserve and panda breeding center, in Wenchuan
county, which remained out of contact, Xinhua said.
The Wolong PandaCam, a live online video feed showing the
activities of the pandas at the nature reserve, stopped showing
footage of the animals late Sunday night. About 1,200 pandas — 80
percent of the surviving wild population in China — live in several
mountainous areas of Sichuan.
The earthquake, China's deadliest since 1976, occurred in an
area with numerous fault lines that have triggered destructive
temblors before. A magnitude 7.5 earthquake in Diexi, Sichuan that
hit on August 25, 1933 killed more than 9,300 people.
The U.S. Geological Survey initially said Monday's quake had a
magnitude of 7.8 but later revised it to 7.9.
In Juyuan town, Xinhua said its reporters saw buried teenagers
struggling to break loose from underneath the rubble of the
three-story building "while others were crying out for help."
As many as 900 students were trapped and four ninth graders
were immediately killed, Xinhua said. Photos showed people using
cranes, mechanical hoists and their hands to remove slabs of
concrete and steel.
Two girls were quoted by Xinhua as saying they escaped because
they had "run faster than others."
Though news trickled out in the first hours after the quake,
the government and its media quickly mobilized, with nearly 8,000
soldiers and police sent to the area. China Central Television ran
non-stop coverage, with phone reports from reporters and a few
isolated camera shots from the scene.
Disasters always pose a test to the communist government,
whose mandate in part rests on providing relief to those in need. In
recent years, the government has improved emergency planning and
rapid response training for the military.
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.
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.
IOC President Jacques Rogge sent "deepest felt condolences for
the victims" in a letter written to China's president.
"The Olympic Movement is at your side, especially during these
difficult moments. Our thoughts are with you." Rogge said in his
letter.
Skyscrapers swayed in Shanghai and in the Taiwanese capital of
Taipei, 100 miles off the southeastern Chinese coast. 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.
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.
|
Death toll in China earthquake rises
to 9,600, may go higher
(AP)
12 May 2008
CHONGQING, China - A massive earthquake
struck central China on Monday, killing more than 9,600 people,
trapping nearly 900 students under the rubble of their school and
raising fears the overall death toll could increase sharply.
In Beichuan county, just east of the epicenter, 80
percent of the buildings had collapsed and some 10,000 people were
injured aside from the 7,000 to 9,000 dead, the official Xinhua News
Agency said. Xinhua cited the Sichuan provincial government as saying
7,651 people died in the province but the situation in at least two
counties remain unclear.
The 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck in the middle
of the afternoon _ when classrooms and office towers were full _ 57
miles (92 kilometers) northwest of Sichuan’s capital 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.
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.
Another photo from Wenchuan, closest to the
epicenter, 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 more than 5,000 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 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.
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 was closed. 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 US 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 US 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.
|
| From AbundantHope.net
Explanation of China's quake
By Michael Mandeville
May 12, 2008, 14:46
BULLETIN ITEM: Eurasia Cracking At Sichuan China - 7.8
Quake followed by strong Class 5+ Aftershocks Every 30 Minutes
Or Less
by MW Mandeville (for release to all media)
[May 12, 2008 ECB] This Great Quake emerged as a simple fault
snap, suddenly and without warning. Although it struck in an
earthquake prone area of Southeast Eurasia, far inland from
subduction zones, the quake had no major pre-cursors in the
area, unlike the recent large quake near Japan. Following this
quake large aftershocks continue to shake the area as frequently
as every 15 minutes. Existing metrics as of Monday morning which
describe this quake are likely very inaccurate. This inner
continental quake has killed perhaps ten(s) of thousands but the
numbers will likely rapidly rise like the still on-going
disaster in Myanmar.
Pre cursors for this quake can be identified if the range of
view is expanded to most of continental Eurasia. On Saturday and
Sunday (Arizona Mountain Time) most world quake activity 4+
ranged through the southern tier of Eurasia in the broad belt
which ranges from the Eastern Mediterranean through to Southeast
Asia and accross the Sichuan area to as far as Taiwan. From this
perspective, the Sichuan quake is obviously part of a major
tectonic "adjustment" in the shape of Eurasia, most likely
forced by vectors from the Southern Hemisphere, ranging from the
northeastern movements of Africa, the Indian Ocean, and the
Australian tectonic plates.
The quake in Sichuan most likely was also partly created by the
forces in the Pacific Plate. Sichuan area is at a vector angle
of 170 degrees or greater to the Pacific Plate, which has quite
obviously moving at an accelerated pace during the past 30 days.
This rapidly moving (relatively speaking) ocean bottom plate has
created both Class 7 quakes and volcanic eruptions around the
Pacific Rim during the past few months, most especially during
the past 30 days.
Most likely a major factor in the motion of the Pacific Ocean
bottom is an accleration of rifting (spreading of the Earth's
crust) in the East Pacific Rise portion of the Great Rift which
snakes around the Earth at the bottoms of the oceans. The
acceleration of spreading has been evident for the past few
months. It is likely releasing far more heat into the bottom of
the East Pacific than normal and this may be the "gating" phase
which will produce the next El Nino, which is likely to emerge
into visibility during the latter part of 2008 and last through
the first half of 2009. Ironically, then, the Great Quakes in
Japan and China this past week may be heralds of record-breaking
El Nino year soon to come.
http://www.michaelmandeville.com/
© Copyright by AbundantHope.net all rights reserved |
|
|
Death toll in China quake exceeds 12,000
By WILLIAM FOREMAN, Associated Press Write
5-13-08DUJIANGYAN, China - The toll of the dead and
missing soared as rescue workers dug through flattened schools
and homes on Tuesday in a desperate attempt to find survivors
of China's
worst earthquake in three decades.
The official
Xinhua News Agency said the death toll
exceeded 12,000 in
Sichuan province alone, and 18,645 were
still buried in debris in the city of
Mianyang, near the epicenter of Monday's
massive, 7.9-magnitude quake.The Sichuan
Daily newspaper reported on its Web site that more
than 26,000 people were injured in Mianyang.
The numbers of casualties was expected to
rise due to the remoteness of the areas affected
by the quake and difficulty in finding buried
victims.
There was little prospect that many
survivors would be found under the rubble. Only 58
people were extricated from demolished buildings
across the quake area so far, China Seismological
Bureau spokesman Zhang Hongwei told Xinhua. In one
county, 80 percent of the buildings were
destroyed.
|
