http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/world/asia/13china.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
BEIJING — A powerful earthquake struck a mountainous region of western
China on Monday, killing at least 107 people and trapping more than
900 students beneath a collapsed high school as tremors shook
buildings for hundreds of miles and were felt as far away as Vietnam
and Thailand, according to interviews and re****ts in China’s state
media.
Skip to next paragraph
Related
Times Topics: Earthquakes
Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
An elderly patient after being evacuated from a hospital in Chengdu in
China's Sichuan province after the earthquake on Monday.
The 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck in Sichuan Province on Monday
afternoon and raised immediate concerns that the death toll could
rapidly rise. State media re****ts said “rows of houses” had collapsed
near the quake’s epicenter. By early evening, state media had re****ted
107 deaths and 34 injuries in three provinces and Chongqing
Municipality.
Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, who arrived in the earthquake region on
Monday night, described the situation as a "very severe earthquake
disaster." President Hu Jintao ordered an “all out” effort to aid
people in the earthquake region while soldiers were dispatched for
disaster relief efforts. Minutes after the western temblor, a second,
smaller quake struck hundreds of miles away, near Beijing. Thousands
of office workers were evacuated.
“I suddenly felt very dizzy, as if I were heavily drunk,” said Zeng
Hui, who works on the 22nd floor of an office tower in Beijing. “I
thought I was seriously ill, then I looked around and saw my
colleagues felt the same way. We were stunned.”
The initial quake struck at 2:28 p.m., or 2:28 a.m., Eastern time,
near Wenchuan County, according to China’s State Seismological Bureau.
People across much of China and as far away as Thailand and Vietnam
re****ted feeling the tremors.
Wenchuan is home to the Wolong Nature Reserve, the country’s most
famous panda reserve, and is located about 55 miles from Chengdu, the
capital of Sichuan, which has a population of roughly 12 million
people.
Early re****ts and telephone interviews suggested that Chengdu had been
spared any significant problems, but officials were struggling to
*****s the full scope of the damage in Wenchuan and elsewhere because
of the disruption in communications caused by the earthquake. More
than 2,300 cell phone towers were knocked down by the quake, according
to China Mobile, the country’s top carrier.
Xinhua, the official news agency, said the 107 fatalities were spread
across Sichuan, neighboring Chongqing Municipality as well as in Gansu
and Yunnan provinces. Damage is believed to be especially severe in
Dujiangyan, a county of 600,000 people located near the epicenter. One
local official described rows of collapsed houses, Xinhua re****ted.
Early Monday evening, Xinhua also flashed an emergency re****t from
Dujiangyan describing that nearly 900 students were feared trapped
after a high school collapsed. Most of the telephones in the city were
not functioning, and the Xinhua re****t could not be independently
verified.
Earlier in the day, the first re****ts of fatalities came in the east
in Chongqing Municipality, where two primary schools were damaged.
Four pupils died and more than 100 others were injured, state media
re****ted. Another person was re****tedly killed beneath a collapsed
water tower in Sichuan Province.
China is prone to seismic activity and has suffered horrific
earthquakes in the recent past. In 1976, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake
hit the city of Tangshan, located roughly 70 miles from Beijing. More
than 240,000 people were killed and nearly every building was leveled.
Communist Party officials initially covered up the extent of the death
toll. Many of China’s biggest cities, including Beijing, are located
in high-risk earthquake zones.
Monday’s smaller 3.9 magnitude earthquake in Beijing struck at 2:35
p.m. in Tongzhou, a district in the eastern half of the city. Many
people in the city felt nothing at all, while others, especially those
in high-rises, were alarmed by a swaying sensation. Thousands of
workers were evacuated as a precaution.
“Suddenly, everything around me started moving and swinging,” said Xie
Zhuofei, a salesman with a 17th floor office in Beijing. “I could
hardly stand. Then I realized it was an earthquake. We went out
immediately.”
Efforts to reach people near the epicenter of the bigger quake in
western China were hindered by the damaged telephone system. But
receptionists at different hotels in Chengdu said the earthquake
appeared not to have caused any major problems in the city. Xinhua
showed photographs of minor flooding caused by damage to an
underground water pipe, but, as yet, the city seemed largely
undamaged.
--
"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government
talking
about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order.
Nothing has
changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists,
we're
talking about getting a court order before we do so"
-George W. Bush, April 20, 2004
Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com
For news feed, http://yahoogroups/subscribe/zepps_news
For essays (please contribute!)
http:yahoogroups/subscribe/zepps_essays
--
What do you call a Republican with a conscience?
An ex-Republican.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=8827
(From Yang, AthD (h.c)
"Prosperity and peace are in the balance," -- Putsch, not admitting that
he's against both
Putsch: leading America to asymetric warfare since 2001
Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.
For the finest in liberal/leftist commentary,
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com
For news feed (free, 10-20 articles a day)
Zepps_News-subscribe@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
essays (donations accepted, 2 articles/week)
Zepps_essays-subscribe@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
#2211 -- Bryan Zepp Jamieson
|
