(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-05-25 00:16
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Earthquake cloud, Chinese photographer catch prediction 2 days before earthquake occurred
Up to Tuesday 30 May:
18 days after Earthquake.
68,516 dead
365,399 injured
19,350 missing
638,305 rescued and evacuated including 6,537 saved alive from the ruins
Thousands confirmed aftershocks above level 4, biggest 6.4
Tuesday 20 May: 8 days after Earthquake.
40,075 dead
247,645 injured
145 confirmed aftershocks above level 4, 23 above level 5, biggest 6.1
34,000 medical staff in quake zone
Nearly 280,000 tents, 480,000 quilts and 1.7 million jackets sent
6bn Chinese yuan ($860m, £440m) received in donations, from China and abroad
Drinking water for 7m people restored
Update(11:49 London 16/ May/ 2008): death toll is 21,500, still14,000 buried.
Update(11:16 London 14/ May/ 2008): death toll is now 14,866.
Update(13/ May/ 2008): death toll is now 12,012, 9,404 buried, 7,841 missing.
Update(13/ May/ 2008): More than 10,000 death. 60,000 missing.
People waiting outside hospital to give blood.
Exiang Middle School, 430 students were buried, only less 100 saved
Parents wait anxiously outside the flattened Juyuan Middle School
The deadly earthquake that rocked Southwestern China and felt all across China and beyond, could possibly have left more than 8,500 people dead, and the death toll is expected to climb as rescue efforts are intensifying.
China’s state-run news agency Xinhua said in a news flash that in Sichuan Province alone, which was hit the hardest, the death toll there has risen to 8,533.
Earlier, it said between 3,000 to 5,000 people are feared dead in the province’s Beichuan County, near the epicenter of Wenchuan County. Wenchuan lies about 145 kilometres west of Chengdu, the densely populated provincial capital.
Xinhua quoted China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs as saying the strong tremor killed at least 107 people in Sichuan’s Chengdu, neighboring Chongqing, Gansu and Yunnan provinces. And, up to 900 teenagers were trapped as their middle school buildings in Dujiangyan, suburban Chengdu, partly collapsed. Rescuers are seen in TV footage using cranes to move away cement and steel structures.
China’s state seimological administration reported the earthquake hit Sichuan Province at 2:28 pm Beijing Time Monday, at a destructive scale of 7.8 on the Richter calculations. The U.S. Geologocial Survey said on its website that the epicentre lies 29 kilometres below the surface, and at a scale of 7.5.
Chinese President Hu Jintao, who have just completed a 5-day official visit to Japan, has ordered prompt rescue efforts to take care of the affected. Premier Wen Jiaobao has cut short his inspection trip in central Henan Province, and have flown to Chengdu to lead the government rescue efforts.
More than 5,000 PLA officers and soliders and 3,000 police have also rushed to Wenchuan and surrounding areas to spearhead the rescue efforts.
Wen Jiaobao told reporters during his flight to Sichuan that the central government is closely monitoring the disaster relief work, and Wen urged for calm, efficiency and confidence in fighting the killer tremor.
“I will be in charge of relief work headquarters that has been set up with eight State Council departments,” Wen said.
Chinese reporters in Juyuan town, about 60 miles from the epicenter, said that they saw trapped teenagers struggling to break loose from underneath the rubble of the three-story building “while others were crying out for help.”
Two teenage girl students were quoted as saying they escaped because they had “run faster than others.”
map of earthquake area
Sleepless Night
Many residents in Chengdu and elsewhere near Sichuan are expected to stay out-doors or in makeshift beds, as they fear more follow-up quakes.
An employee of chinadaily.com.cn, who happens to be in Chengdu on a business trip there, said hotel administration has instructed all tenants to keep away from their rooms. The employee said more than 50 are staying in the first-floor lobby.
“We felt continuous shaking for about two or three minutes. All the people in our office are rushing downstairs. We’re still feeling slight tremblings,” said an office worker in Chengdu, when the tremor struck.
Provincial officials said that the temblor struck hilly and foresty countryside leading up to the mountains, toppling buildings in small cities and towns in the largely rural area.
With a population of 111,800, Wenchuan County lies in southeast part of the Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Aba, 145 km to the northwest of Chengdu. Wenchuan is home to the Wolong Nature Reserve, China’s leading research and breeding base of the endangered giant pandas.
Quake Felt Nationwide
In Beijing’s financial district, many workers poured from their buildings but there were no visible signs of damage. The subway system was unaffected.
Rescue workers search for victims in debris in Dujiangyan, Southwest China’s Sichuan Province on May 12, 2008. An earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale jolted nearby Wenchuan County at 14:28 Monday. [Xinhua]
“People were shouting ‘get out, get out’, so we all ran out of our dorm,” said a student surnamed Zhang at a university in nearby Chongqing.
Xinhua reporters in many other parts of China also reported tremors. Reporters in Chengdu said they saw cracks on walls of some residential buildings in the downtown areas, but no building collapsed.
The telecom networks in Chengdu and Chongqing cities broken down for a while after the quake. People complained they were unable to have phone calls on the fixed line or the mobile.
The quake was also felt in Zhengzhou, capital of central Henan Province, where people rushed out of homes and offices and took to the streets.
Many said they felt dizzy and saw the pendant lamps on their ceilings swinging back and forth.
In Lanzhou, capital of the northwest China’s Gansu Province, the quake sent many parked cars by the roadside buzzing. Xinhua reporters in Yinchuan, capital of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, said they felt the office building rocking back and forth for about four minutes.
A retiree in Leshan City of Sichuan Province said over the telephone that a wall in her garden collapsed, while a repairman in Chongqing saw the ceiling of his factory shamble and alarmed the staff, who soon left the building. In Shanghai, people were evacuated from office buildings in Hongqiao and Nanjing Road.
In Shanghai, people were evacuated from office buildings in Hongqiao and Nanjing Road.
Mobile phones in Chengdu and Chongqing could not be reached for a while on Monday afternoon.
See Also:
More about China Earthquake:
China: At least 14,866 die in killer earthquake
satellite photo of china earthquake
Chinese couple’s wedding photo when the earthquake struck
Earthquake In China Unnoticed By Google?
Earthquake cloud, Chinese photographer catch prediction 2 days before earthquake occurred
written by Pinewood Design
\\ tags: aftershock, chengdu, China, die, earthquake, killer, Sichuan, Wenchuan, Xinhua
You can see that river already been blocked by mud-rock flow, could cause flood anytime.
