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One of the worst earthquakes in decades
struck central China on Monday, killing nearly 9,000 people,
trapping about 900 students under the rubble of their school and
causing a toxic chemical leak, state media reported.


      The 7.8-magnitude earthquake devastated a hilly region of small
cities and towns in Sichuan and nearby provinces. The official
Xinhua News Agency said 8,533 people died in Sichuan alone and
dozens of other deaths were reported in surrounding areas.


      Xinhua said 80 percent of the buildings had collapsed in
Beichuan county in Sichuan province after the quake, raising fears
the overall death toll could increase sharply.


      State media said a chemical plant in Shifang city had cratered,
burying hundreds of people and spilling more than 80 tons of toxic
liquid ammonia from the site.


      The earthquake sent thousands of people rushing out of buildings
and into the streets hundreds of miles away in Beijing and
Shanghai. The temblor was felt as far away as Vietnam and Thailand.


      The quake posed a challenge to a government already grappling
with discontent over high inflation and a widespread uprising among
Tibetans in western China while trying to prepare for the Beijing
Olympics this August.


      It hit about 60 miles northwest of Chengdu in the middle of the
afternoon when classrooms and office towers were full. There were
several smaller aftershocks, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its
Web site.


      The temblor struck hilly country leading up to the Tibetan
highlands, toppling buildings in small cities and towns in the
largely rural area. About 1,200 pandas - 80 percent of the
surviving wild population in China - live in several mountainous
areas of Sichuan.


      The earthquake, China's deadliest since 1976, occurred in an
area with numerous fault lines that have triggered destructive
temblor before. A magnitude 7.5 earthquake in Diexi, Sichuan that
hit on August 25, 1933 killed more than 9,300 people.


      Xinhua said 50 bodies had been pulled from the debris of the
school building in Juyuan town but did not say if the children were
alive. Xinhua reported students also were buried under five other
toppled schools in Deyang city.


      Xinhua said its reporters saw buried teenagers struggling to
break loose from underneath the rubble of the three-story building
in Juyuan "while others were crying out for help."


      Two girls were quoted by Xinhua as saying they escaped because
they had "run faster than others."


      Photos showed heavy cranes trying to remove rubble from the
ruined school. Other photos posted on the Internet and found on the
Chinese search engine Baidu showed arms and a torso sticking out of
the rubble of the school as dozens of people worked to free them,
using their hands to move concrete slabs.


      Calls into the city did not go through as panicked residents
quickly overloaded the telephone system. The quake affected
telephone and power networks, and even state media appeared to have
few details of the disaster.


      "In Chengdu, mobile telecommunication convertors have
experienced jams and thousands of servers were out of service,"
said Sha Yuejia, deputy chief executive officer of China Mobile.


      Although it was difficult to telephone Chengdu, an Israeli
student, Ronen Medzini, sent a text message to The Associated Press
saying there were power and water outages there.


      "Traffic jams, no running water, power outs, everyone sitting
in the streets, patients evacuated from hospitals sitting outside
and waiting," he said.


      The road to Wenchuan from Chendu was cut off by landslides,
state media said, slowing the rescue efforts.


      The earthquake also rattled buildings in Beijing, some 930 miles
to the north, less than three months before the Chinese capital was
expected to be full of hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors
for the Summer Olympics.


      Li Jiulin, a top engineer on the 91,000-seat National Stadium -
known as the Bird's Nest and the jewel of the Olympics - was
conducting an inspection at the venue when the quake occurred. He
told reporters the building was designed to withstand a 8.0 quake.


      "The Olympic venues were not affected by the earthquake," said
Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing organizing committee.

      Skyscrapers swayed in Shanghai and in the Taiwanese capital of
Taipei, 100 miles off the southeastern Chinese coast. There were no
immediate reports of injuries or damage.


      The quake was felt as far away as the Vietnamese capital of
Hanoi, where some people hurried out of swaying office buildings
and into the streets downtown. A building in the Thai capital of
Bangkok also was evacuated after the quake was felt there.


      A magnitude 7.8 earthquake is considered a major event, capable
of causing widespread damage and injuries in populated areas.


      The last serious earthquake in China was in 2003, when a
6.8-magnitude quake killed 268 people in Bachu county in the west
of Xinjiang.


      China's deadliest earthquake in modern history struck the
northeastern city of Tangshan on July 28, 1976, killing 240,000
people.

Gallery

One of the worst earthquakes in decades struck central China on Monday, killing nearly 9,000 people, trapping about 900 students under the rubble of their school and causing a toxic chemical leak, state media reported.

Death toll in China earthquake up to nearly 9,000

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