China 7.8 mag quake

BEIJING (Reuters) - An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 struck China's Sichuan province on Monday, less than 100 km (60 miles) from the provincial capital of Chengdu.The quake was felt across much of China and as far southwest as Bangkok, Thailand's capital, some 3,300 km (2050 miles) away, where office buildings swayed for several minutes. Chengdu a fast-growing metropolis of 10 million people and home to the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base is around 1,300 km (2070 miles) southwest of Beijing."All the buildings are swaying back and forth," said a university student in the central city of Wuhan, adding that people had rushed outside and one single-storey building had collapsed. "We felt continuous shaking for about two or three minutes," said another office worker. "All the people in our office are rushing downstairs. We're still feeling slight tremblings." China's tallest building, the Jinmao Tower in Shanghai, as well as other high-rise buildings were ordered evacuated after the quake and aftershocks.Many workers poured from their buildings in Bejing's financial centre, but there were no visible signs of damage. The subway system was unaffected.The U.S. Geological Survey said on its website http://earthquake.usgs.gov) that the quake struck at 0628 GMT at a depth of 29 km (18 miles). The agency originally put the strength of the quake at 7.8. Japan's meteorological agency said no warnings for a tsunami has been issued.Sources said there was no immediate impact to the Three Gorges Dam project, the weight of whose massive reservoir, hundreds of kms from Chengdu, experts have said could increase the risk of tremors.(watch what happens with the Three Gorges Dam, this is the last indicator of major earth cataclysms escalating)A source at the biggest refinery in western China, Lanzhou, said the plant also appeared unaffected by the quake.An official with the Sichuan provincial seismic bureau said the epicenter of the quake was in Wenchuan county, in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, a mountainous area populated mostly by Han Chinese but with sizeable Qiang and Tibetan populations.On Chinese state television, a reporter said that telephone calls to Wenchuan were not connecting. State TV also said the government was preparing to send rescue and aid teams to the region.A receptionist at the Tibet Hotel in Chengdu said the hotel had evacuated its guests, but said things were "calm" there now. "It was very sudden and I am not sure what has happened elsewhere, but we are OK here," the receptionist said.The quake was felt as far away as Vietnam and Thailand, startling office workers in high-rise buildings."We have a number of reports that high buildings along Sukhumvit and Sathorn roads (in Bangkok) felt the tremors, but there are no reports of damage," a geologist at Thailand's Meteorological Department told Reuters.High-rise residential and office towers in the western suburbs of Vietnam's capital, Hanoi also shook for several seconds, witnesses said, but there was no visible damage. Hundreds of residents and office workers left the buildings as a precaution.(Reporting by Jason Subler and Darren Schuettler; Writing by David Fox; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
China quake toll nears 10,000
CONTINUATION OF NEWS
Nearly 10,000 people were killed by the earthquake that hammered south-west China, officials said on Tuesday as rescuers struggled to reach the worst-hit areas.Rescuers worked frantically through the night, pulling bodies from schools, homes, factories and hospitals that were demolished by the 7.8 magnitude quake, which rippled from a mountainous area of Sichuan province across much of China Monday afternoon.The toll from China's worst earthquake for over three decades appeared sure to climb as troops struggled on foot to reach the worst-hit area, Wenchuan, a hilly county of 112,000 people 100km from Sichuan's provincial capital, Chengdu.China's state-run Xinhua news agency said the death toll from the quake had reached nearly 10,000, quoting the disaster relief headquarters.The previous toll stood at more than 8,700, including 8,533 confirmed dead in Sichuan province alone.The area had been rocked by more than 1,180 aftershocks of up to magnitude six as of 5am (0700 AEST) on Tuesday, the sichuan provincial seismological bureau said, according to Xinhua.About 900 teenagers were buried under a collapsed three-storey school building in the Sichuan city of Dujiangyan.Premier Wen Jiabao, who rushed there, bowed three times in grief before some of the 50 bodies already pulled out, Xinhua reported."Not one minute can be wasted," Wen said, state television showed.
"One minute, one second could mean a child's life.""Several thousand" people at a single factory in Sichuan province had been killed or buried, Xinhua reported on Tuesday.The report, which gave few other specifics on the casualty numbers, said the disaster occurred when a steam turbine factory collapsed on Monday in the town of Hanwang in Mianzhu city.China's Communist Party leadership announced that coping with the devastating quake, and ensuring that it did not threaten social stability, was now the government's top priority."Time is life," said an official announcement from the Communist Party Standing Committee, according to the Xinhua news agency."Make fighting the earthquake and rescue work the current top task.""The situation is worse than we previously estimated and we need more people here to help," Premier Wen said, speaking at the disaster relief headquarters in Dujiangyan, 100km from the quake's epicentre."We cannot just rely on medical teams inside Sichuan province, we need teams to come in from outside," Wen was quoted as saying on CCTV.President Hu Jintao, describing the quake as the top government priority, urged an "all-out" effort to rescue victims.Troops were ordered to help with disaster relief work.Buildings swayed in Beijing and Shanghai, while the quake was felt in Hong Kong, Vietnam and in the Thai capital Bangkok, 1,800km from the epicentre.Xinhua earlier quoted disaster relief officials saying up to 5,000 people died in one Sichuan district, Beichuan, where 80 per cent of buildings collapsed.Dozens of military vehicles were heading there, the agency said.The Sichuan quake was the worst to hit China since the 1976 Tangshan tremor in north-eastern China where up to 300,000 died.Then, unlike now, the Communist Party kept a tight lid on information about the extent of the disaster.
In Chengdu, many residents slept outside or in cars Monday night, fearing more tremors in the city where at least 45 people died and 600 were injured.The government rushed troops and medical teams to dig for survivors and treat the injured.But severed roads and rail lines blocked the way to Wenchuan, and local officials Described crumpled houses, landslides and scenes of desperation."We are in urgent need of tents, food, medicine and satellite communications equipment," the Communist Party chief of Wenchuan, Wang Bin said, according to Xinhua.Most farmers' homes in two townships had collapsed and there was no word from the three townships nearest the epicentre, which have a population of 24,000, the report added. So far Wenchuan has reported 15 dead, a number likely to rise steeply.