Earthquake in China kills 10,000 at latest count

A 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit China early this week, at around 2:45p on Monday afternoon, Beijing time.

News is slowly filtering in, and the numbers are still uncertain, but latest count puts the casualties at about 10,000, with figures still rising. Even with a population of about 1.3 billion, this is still a huge number. The epicenter was in Wenchuan, in Sichuan Province, on the western side of China, but apparently felt throughout most of the country, even in Chongqing, about 200 miles from the epicenter. In Wenchuan, about one-third of the buildings have collapsed.

A big problem has been that most of the roads leading to the area are in mountainous areas (it's slightly east of the Himalayas) with an unstable sediment foundation, and are pretty damaged by rockslides and mudslides, so relief and aid have been slow in arriving. An entire middle school collapsed, with about 900 students still trapped inside, although they've been slowly getting people out. About 6,000 people have been evacuated from the area, and most are afraid to sleep indoors for fear of aftershocks bringing the building down. Apparently, the shocks could be felt on the eastern and southern Chinese coast (Shanghai, Taiwan, Hong Kong) and in parts of Southeast Asia (Vietnam and Thailand, purportedly).

Although it was reported that none of the Olympic venues were damaged by the quake, it has been a hard year for China in general, with the coldest winter bringing down its transportation system earlier this year, plus the train derailing, the Olympic torch protests, and a deadly virus attacking children last month and expected to continue through the summer; there were also the Tibetan riots, and now this.

We've been discussing it in class and are all keeping our eyes on this as further details arrive.

Update: Xinhua reports that two chemical plants in Sichuan trapped 2,300 people inside, killing 600, and leaking 80 tons of ammonia.

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CNN: Nearly 10,000 reported killed by huge China quake.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/12/china.quake/index.html