Nation & World

<< Previous   of   Next >> Associated Press  (click to enlarge) Rescue workers pull out girl (center) from under the rubble of a collapsed school in Juyuan, southwestern China's Sichuan province, today. Monday's earthquake had a magnitude of 7.9. (click to enlarge) Residents take shelter in tents after a 7.9-magnitude quake in Dujiangyan city in China's Sichuan Province on Monday.   ADVERTISEMENT   CONTACT THE HERALD Do you have a news tip? newstips@heraldnet.com | 425.339.3400   Published: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 China quake toll rises to at least 10,000 Associated Press CHENGDU, China -- A 7.9-magnitude earthquake toppled buildings, schools and chemical plants Monday in central China, killing about 10,000 people and trapping untold numbers in mounds of concrete, steel and earth in the country's worst quake in three decades. The midafternoon quake devastated a region of small cities and towns set amid steep hills north of Sichuan's provincial capital of Chengdu. Its depth -- about six miles below the surface, according to the USGS -- gave the tremor such wide impact, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The quake was felt as far away as Vietnam. As Tuesday dawned, rescuers were frantically searching for more survivors, but rain was compounding the difficulty. Premier Wen Jiabao, who flew to the region, said rain was forecast for the next several days. The official Xinhua news agency reported today that 1,000 students and teachers were buried and feared dead when a high school collapsed in Beichuan county. The building was reduced to a pile of rubble two yards high, it said. In the town of Juyuan, a three-story high school collapsed, burying as many as 900 students and killing at least 50, Xinhua said. Photos showed people using cranes, mechanical hoists and their hands to remove slabs of concrete and steel. Buried teenagers struggled to break free from the rubble, "while others were crying out for help," Xinhua said. Families waited in the rain near the wreckage as rescuers wrote the names of the dead on a blackboard, Xinhua said. The earthquake hit one of the last homes of the giant panda at the Wolong Nature Reserve and panda breeding center, in Wenchuan county, which remained out of contact, Xinhua said. In Chengdu, it crashed telephone networks and hours later left parts of the city of 10 million in darkness. Xinhua reported this morning that the death toll was about 10,000. It said nearly 10,000 people died in central China's Sichuan province alone and 300 others in three other provinces and the mega-city of Chongqing. Landslides in four counties left roads impassable today, causing the government to order soldiers into the area on foot, state television said, and heavy rain prevented four military helicopters from landing. Wenchuan's Communist Party secretary appealed for air drops of tents, food and medicine. "We also need medical workers to save the injured people here," Xinhua quoted Wang Bin as telling other officials who reached him by phone. To the east, in Beichuan county, 80 percent of the buildings fell, and 10,000 people were injured, aside from 3,000 to 5,000 dead, Xinhua said. State media said two chemical plants in an industrial zone of the city of Shifang collapsed, spilling more than 80 tons of toxic liquid ammonia. The news agency said about 600 people died in Shifang and up to 2,300 were buried by rubble. Jiabao, a geologist by training, called the quake "a major geological disaster," and traveled to the disaster area to oversee rescue and relief operations. "Hang on a bit longer. The troops are rescuing you," the premier shouted to people buried in the Traditional Medicine Hospital in the city of Dujiangyan, on the road to Wenchuan, in comments broadcast by CCTV. The quake was the deadliest since one in 1976 in the city of Tangshan near Beijing that killed 240,000 -- although some reports say as many as 655,000 perished -- the most devastating in modern history. A 1933 quake near where Monday's struck killed at least 9,000, according to geologists.

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