Post by cardigan on May 12, 2008 14:52:59 GMT -5
More than 8,700 people have died in the powerful earthquake that struck south-western China
not good.
The quake, with a magnitude of 7.8, struck close to densely populated areas in Sichuan province, including the capital Chengdu.
It is the worst to strike China since the Tangshan earthquake in 1976, which claimed 242,000 lives, Xinhua news agency said.
Xinhua said 8,533 people had died in Sichuan, citing the local Government.
The national disaster relief headquarters reported 48 killed in north-western Gansu province, 50 in the municipality of Chongqing, 61 in Shaanxi province and one in south-western Yunnan, according to Xinhua.
All of those provinces and Chongqing, a special municipality of more than 30 million people, border Sichuan.
One other person was killed in central Henan province, the news agency said.
Tallied together, Xinhua has reported the deaths of more than 8,700 people.
At least 30 people have been killed in Wenchuan, the epicentre of the earthquake, Xinhua said, but added the number of deaths there was likely to rise as the rescuers had been unable to reach the county.
Roads leading to Wenchuan had been destroyed and storms had prevented military rescue helicopters from getting there, Xinhua and other state-media reports said.
In Sichuan's Beichuan county, which is close to Wenchuan, the number of deaths was estimated at 5,000, with 80 per cent of the buildings there destroyed and up to 10,000 people injured, according to Xinhua.
Xinhua reported earlier that 900 students were buried in the collapse of a high school building in Dujiangyan city, also in Sichuan. Fifty people have been confirmed dead at that school, the news agency said.
Xinhua reporters said teenagers partially buried were struggling to break free, while others were calling for help.
A tearful mother told the reporters her son was buried in the ruins.
Hundreds of people were also buried in two chemical plants in Shifang city, Sichuan, and more than 6,000 people nearby were evacuated, Xinhua said.
Transport chaos
A cargo train derailed and caught fire in a tunnel near Huixian County in north-western Gansu as the tunnel began to collapse, Xinhua quoted a spokesman for the Ministry of Railways as saying. One man was injured during the incident.
All trains to and from Chengdu were ordered to stop, the Chengdu Business Newspaper reported. Xinhua said earlier that the city's airport was also shut down while engineers assessed the runways.
Air China announced that all its flights to Chengdu had been diverted to other airports, Xinhua reported, and there were delays reported on planes travelling to neighbouring Chongqing, and Xian in the north.
Ten flights in and out of Hong Kong were delayed or cancelled, with one flight from Paris being diverted to Beijing, officials said.
The communication network went down in Sichuan and other areas after the quake, including Beijing's mobile phone system - about 1,500 kilometres from the epicentre - where tremors were felt.
People reported feeling tremors as far away as Beijing, Bangkok, and Thailand.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called the earthquake a "major disaster" and urged calm.
Tibetan plateau
The violent quake is linked to a shift of the Tibetan plateau to the north and east, specialists at the Paris Institute of Earth Physics said.
"There will certainly be many aftershocks," commented Paul Tapponnier, an expert on tectonics in the region that is prone to earthquakes.
Earthquakes are frequent and deadly along the fringes of the Tibetan Plateau, which was raised when India collided into Eurasia, starting about 50 million years ago.
It is this powerful thrust that created the Himalayas, towering at 8,848 metres with Mount Everest, the highest peak. The mountains continue to reach skyward to this day, propelled by unstable tectonic terrain.
"Tibet is being pushed to the east. It is straddling southern China and locally the Sichuan bassin," said Mr Tapponier.
The quake that emanated in the Longmenshan margins of the Tibetan plateau "has a very complex geology," said Robin Laccassin, director of the tectonics department at the Institute.
"There are many major fault lines ... Some are ancient and they probably broke," said Mr Laccassin.
The deadliest earthquake to rock the Tibetan plateau in the 20th century was in 1920 when 230,000 people died in Gansu province. Another quake in Yunnan in the south-west left more than 15,000 dead in 1970.
- AFP
not good.
The quake, with a magnitude of 7.8, struck close to densely populated areas in Sichuan province, including the capital Chengdu.
It is the worst to strike China since the Tangshan earthquake in 1976, which claimed 242,000 lives, Xinhua news agency said.
Xinhua said 8,533 people had died in Sichuan, citing the local Government.
The national disaster relief headquarters reported 48 killed in north-western Gansu province, 50 in the municipality of Chongqing, 61 in Shaanxi province and one in south-western Yunnan, according to Xinhua.
All of those provinces and Chongqing, a special municipality of more than 30 million people, border Sichuan.
One other person was killed in central Henan province, the news agency said.
Tallied together, Xinhua has reported the deaths of more than 8,700 people.
At least 30 people have been killed in Wenchuan, the epicentre of the earthquake, Xinhua said, but added the number of deaths there was likely to rise as the rescuers had been unable to reach the county.
Roads leading to Wenchuan had been destroyed and storms had prevented military rescue helicopters from getting there, Xinhua and other state-media reports said.
In Sichuan's Beichuan county, which is close to Wenchuan, the number of deaths was estimated at 5,000, with 80 per cent of the buildings there destroyed and up to 10,000 people injured, according to Xinhua.
Xinhua reported earlier that 900 students were buried in the collapse of a high school building in Dujiangyan city, also in Sichuan. Fifty people have been confirmed dead at that school, the news agency said.
Xinhua reporters said teenagers partially buried were struggling to break free, while others were calling for help.
A tearful mother told the reporters her son was buried in the ruins.
Hundreds of people were also buried in two chemical plants in Shifang city, Sichuan, and more than 6,000 people nearby were evacuated, Xinhua said.
Transport chaos
A cargo train derailed and caught fire in a tunnel near Huixian County in north-western Gansu as the tunnel began to collapse, Xinhua quoted a spokesman for the Ministry of Railways as saying. One man was injured during the incident.
All trains to and from Chengdu were ordered to stop, the Chengdu Business Newspaper reported. Xinhua said earlier that the city's airport was also shut down while engineers assessed the runways.
Air China announced that all its flights to Chengdu had been diverted to other airports, Xinhua reported, and there were delays reported on planes travelling to neighbouring Chongqing, and Xian in the north.
Ten flights in and out of Hong Kong were delayed or cancelled, with one flight from Paris being diverted to Beijing, officials said.
The communication network went down in Sichuan and other areas after the quake, including Beijing's mobile phone system - about 1,500 kilometres from the epicentre - where tremors were felt.
People reported feeling tremors as far away as Beijing, Bangkok, and Thailand.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called the earthquake a "major disaster" and urged calm.
Tibetan plateau
The violent quake is linked to a shift of the Tibetan plateau to the north and east, specialists at the Paris Institute of Earth Physics said.
"There will certainly be many aftershocks," commented Paul Tapponnier, an expert on tectonics in the region that is prone to earthquakes.
Earthquakes are frequent and deadly along the fringes of the Tibetan Plateau, which was raised when India collided into Eurasia, starting about 50 million years ago.
It is this powerful thrust that created the Himalayas, towering at 8,848 metres with Mount Everest, the highest peak. The mountains continue to reach skyward to this day, propelled by unstable tectonic terrain.
"Tibet is being pushed to the east. It is straddling southern China and locally the Sichuan bassin," said Mr Tapponier.
The quake that emanated in the Longmenshan margins of the Tibetan plateau "has a very complex geology," said Robin Laccassin, director of the tectonics department at the Institute.
"There are many major fault lines ... Some are ancient and they probably broke," said Mr Laccassin.
The deadliest earthquake to rock the Tibetan plateau in the 20th century was in 1920 when 230,000 people died in Gansu province. Another quake in Yunnan in the south-west left more than 15,000 dead in 1970.
- AFP