Thousands perish in quake

About 8,500 people were confirmed killed - with the death toll expected to keep climbing - after an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale rocked Sichuan and affected more than a dozen other provinces yesterday.
The quake struck at 2.28pm in Wenchuan county, less than 100km from the Sichuan capital of Chengdu , in what was the strongest to strike the mainland in more than three decades.

The tremor was felt in 16 provinces and municipalities including Beijing and Shanghai, according to the China Earthquake Administration. It was also felt in Hong Kong, and as far away as Vietnam, Thailand and Taiwan.

Last time the mainland was hit by an earthquake measuring 7.8 was in July 1976 when more than 270,000 peopled died in the northern city of Tangshan , Hebei province .

In Sichuan, 8,533 people have been confirmed dead. In Beichuan county alone, 3,000 to 5,000 people were believed to have been killed and more than 10,000 injured, Xinhua reported.

Nearly 900 students in Juyuan township in the city of Dujiangyan, about 100km south from Wenchuan, were buried and feared dead after their school building collapsed in the quake. At least 50 of them were confirmed dead last night.

In nearby Shifang city, hundreds of people where buried when buildings at two chemical plants fell down, triggering the leakage of over 80 tonnes of liquid ammonia which forced about 6,000 residents to abandon their homes, the State Administration of Work Safety said, without providing casualty figures.

In Wenchuan county, at least 15 people were killed and 160 were injured, the local government said. Accurate casualty figures are hard to collect due to severed communications and transport links.

Outside Sichuan, preliminary official estimates put the death toll at 61 in Shaanxi , 48 in Gansu , 50 in Chongqing and one in Yunnan . Stampedes were reported in some primary and middle schools in Gansu.

Xiong Xuesong, a 35-year-old engineer, said he felt the first real panic in his life when quake struck while he was shopping in a four-storey Chengdu supermarket among 400 or so shoppers.

"Suddenly the building swayed. The floor became soft. Tiles fell off from walls and goods from shelves. Seconds later, some people started to scream. All this happened in one or two minutes. But it seemed to be much longer," Mr Xiong said. "We found our way out with the help of shop staff. Hundreds of people were already standing in the street, talking about the earthquake. It was not until then I realised it was a quake."

Mr Xiong said there were no warnings before the quake and people were not told how long the aftershocks might continue.

A total of 313 aftershocks shook Sichuan in the three hours after the quake, provincial authorities said.

The disaster will test Beijing's emergency response system and relief efforts for the third time this year, following the blizzards in January and February which caused overwhelming transport chaos and a train crash in Shandong last month that killed 72.

President Hu Jintao ordered "all-out efforts" to save quake victims, while Premier Wen Jiabao arrived at Chengdu to direct the rescue work.

CCTV footage showed Mr Wen on a plane to Sichuan, calling officials to go to the front line to serve the people. "It is an especially severe earthquake disaster. The most important things are calm, confidence, courage and strong leadership," he said.

The Chengdu Military Area Command mobilised 5,000 troops and armed police to help disaster efforts in Wenchuan.

Tian Yixiang, an officer with the emergency office of the PLA, told Xinhua the troops would help local authorities assess the situation and carry out relief work.

Heavy rain and thunderstorms prevented helicopters from flying into the hardest-hit areas, and the China Meteorological Administration warned that disaster relief efforts would be hampered by bad weather over the next three days.

Mobile phone services in Sichuan and Shaanxi were affected by the earthquake, and fixed-line services were cut in some areas of Sichuan and Gansu.

The Three Gorges Dam was not affected by the quake, an official said.

SCMP. May 13, 2008.