Mother Earth Strikes Back, Target: China

[6souls]

http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2008/WORLD/as...search2.ap.jpg
Rescuers try to help a child trapped in the rubble at Juyuan Middle School in Dujiangyan City.

Thousands killed by huge China quake

# 8,533 reported dead in one province after major earthquake hits central China
# 900 children also buried when a school building collapsed, 50 bodies found
# State news agency says several schools collapsed after 7.9 magnitude quake
# China releasing $2.89 million to respond to the disaster, Xinhua reports

http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2008/WORLD/as...cue.afp.gi.jpg
Rescuers search the rubble of collapsed school where six children died in Dujiangyan, southwest China.

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Thousands of people have been killed by Monday's powerful earthquake in just one affected region of central China, its government said, with the toll expected to keep rising as bodies are retrieved from schools, homes and factories.

http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2008/WORLD/as...t.faint.ap.jpg
Students help a fainted classmate in Qionglai city in southwest China's Sichuan province.

The death toll quickly rose throughout the day. State-run news agency Xinhua said it had reached 8,533 in Sichuan Province by Monday night, and another 10,000 were believed to be injured.

It reported that authorities were yet to reach Wenchuan County -- which sits at the epicenter of the 7.9-magnitude earthquake with a population of about 112,000 -- because of damage to roads.

In Beichuan County, close to Wenchuan, the number of deaths was estimated at more than 3,000, with 80 percent of the buildings destroyed.

Watch as the death toll rises

In addition, at least 48 people were killed in the northwest Gansu Province, Xinhua said.

Several hundred students were also feared to be buried in collapsed school buildings, the agency said.

China's Seismological Bureau said the earthquake had affected more than half the country's provinces and municipalities.

U.S. President George W. Bush released a statement saying his country "stands ready to help in any way possible."

"I am particularly saddened by the number of students and children affected by this tragedy," Bush said.

China's government is releasing $2.89 million to respond to the disaster, Xinhua reported. China's Red Cross has dispatched 557 tents, 2,500 quilts and other aid to the disaster zone, Chinese television reported.

In Sichuan's Shifang city, the quake buried hundreds of people in two collapsed chemical plants, and more than 80 tons of ammonia leaked out, Xinhua said.

The local government evacuated 6,000 civilians from the area after homes and factories were also destroyed.

The quake was "felt in most parts of China," Xinhua reported, with the confirmed casualties in the provinces and municipality of Sichuan, Gansu, Chongqing and Yunnan.

Xinhua said several schools collapsed, at least partially, in the quake.

At one, as many as 900 students were feared buried. At least 50 bodies have been pulled from the rubble at the high school in the Juyuan Township of Dujiangyan City in Wenchuan County.

"Some buried teenagers were struggling to break loose from underneath the ruins while others were crying out for help," Xinhua reported.

"Grieved parents watched as five cranes were excavating at the site and an ambulance was waiting.

"A tearful mother said her son, ninth-grader Zhang Chengwei, was buried in the ruins."

President Hu Jintao ordered an all-out effort to help those affected, and Premier Wen Jiabao traveled to the region to direct the rescue work, Xinhua reported.

"My fellow Chinese, facing such a severe disaster, we need calm, confidence, courage and efficient organization," Wen was quoted as saying.

"I believe we can certainly overcome the disaster with the public and the military working together under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee and the government."

Peter Sammonds, professor of geophysics at University College London, called the earthquake "tremendous."

See workers in Chengdu hiding under their desks during the quake.

"Particularly in the more remote, the more mountainous part where this has taken place, a lot of the buildings are built on sediments that are quite unstable. They're probably liquifying, causing the buildings to collapse," he said.

"You might expect landslides to occur, which could actually stop the relief efforts going through on the roads, so this could be very grim in the remoter, more mountainous parts of this province."

While many of the most immediate efforts were focused on Sichuan Province, Xinhua reported that there were dead and injured also in Gansu, Chongqing and Yunnan.

Scattered stories of destruction poured in from around the country. Xinhua said one person was killed in Santai County, in the city of Mianyang, when a water tower fell.

A provincial government spokesman said they feared more dead and injured in collapsed houses in Dujiangyan City in Wenchuan County.

A driver for the seismological bureau said he saw "rows of houses collapsed" in Dujiangyan, Xinhua reported.

"Wenchuan is home to the Wolong Nature Reserve, China's leading research and breeding base for endangered giant pandas," Xinhua reported. The condition of the center was not immediately known because all communication services were cut off.

Bonnie Thie, the country director the Peace Corps, was on a university campus in Chengdu about 100 km from the epicenter, in the eastern part of China's Sichuan province, when the first quake hit.

"You could see the ground shaking," Thie told CNN.

The shaking "went on for what seemed like a very long time," she said.

"This is a very dangerous earthquake," said Bruce Presgrave, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, which updated the magnitude of Monday's quake from 7.8 to 7.9.

The quake had the potential to cause major damage because of its strength and proximity to major population centers, he said.

In addition, the earthquake was relatively shallow, Presgrave said, and those kinds of quakes tend to do more damage near the epicenter than deeper ones.

An earthquake with 7.5 magnitude in the northern Chinese city of Tangshan killed 255,000 people in 1976 -- the greatest death toll from an earthquake in the last four centuries and the second greatest in recorded history, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Tangshan is roughly 1,600 km from Chengdu, the nearest major city to the epicenter of Monday's quake.

After the first quake struck Monday, the ground shook as far away as Beijing, which is 1,500 km from the epicenter.

They felt "a very quiet rolling sensation" that lasted for about a minute, according to CNN correspondent John Vause.

"Our building began to sway," he said.

Thousands of people were evacuated from Beijing high-rises immediately after the earthquake.

At least seven more earthquakes -- measuring between 4.0 and 6.0 magnitudes -- happened nearby over the three hours after the initial quake at at 2:28 p.m. local time (0728 GMT), the USGS reported.

A spokesman for the Beijing Olympic Committee said no Olympic venues were affected by the earthquake. The massive Three Gorges Dam -- roughly 600 km east of the epicenter -- was not damaged, a spokesman said.

The earthquake was also felt in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taiwan, and as far away as Hanoi, Vietnam, and Bangkok, Thailand, according to the Hong Kong-based Mandarin-language channel Phoenix TV.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/0 ... cnnSTCText

[Kerberoz]

Good, maybe it took out a couple RMT farms.

[Anyway]

down to 999,991,000

[Correction]

Real classy guys. This isn't /b/. Nobody thinks you're funny or a winner for being the first one in with the insensitive rimshots.

[Shuemue]

Real classy guys. This isn't /b/. Nobody thinks you're funny or a winner for being the first one in with the insensitive rimshots.

QFT

Thousands of innocent deaths isn't fucking funny no matter how you spin it.

[Zalius]

down to 999,991,000

flkdhglfdhg roflfolfofldgjudf;lkghjdfkl;gh oh my god i cant breath

[6souls]

more pics:

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...ool_ap220b.jpg
Thousands of people are believed to have been killed in the powerful earthquake that struck south-west China's Sichuan province at about 1430 (0630GMT).

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...ol_afp466b.jpg
Hundreds of students were in Juyuan Middle School in Dujiangyan city, near the earthquake's epicentre, when the building collapsed in the quake.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...nes_ap466b.jpg
Hundreds of other people are feared to have been buried in the rubble of collapsed houses, schools and factories in densely-populated Sichuan.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...magepiuafp.jpg
Photographers have captured images of the effects in cities like Dujiangyan but the fate of more remote areas is still to be determined.

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Officials said 80% of the buildings in Beichuan county, close to the epicentre, had been destroyed.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...bao_ap466b.jpg
China's President Hu Jintao called for an "all out" effort to help earthquake victims. Within two hours of the quake, Premier Wen Jiabao was flying to Sichuan to oversee relief work.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...wd_afp466b.jpg
The 7.8 quake shook buildings here in Chongqing city and was felt as far away as Beijing, Shanghai and the Thai capital, Bangkok.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...ff_afp466b.jpg
People evacuated offices and hospitals in Sichuan's provincial capital, Chengdu, 92km (57 miles) from the quake's epicentre.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...ack_ap220b.jpg
The earthquake created a crack in this building in Lanzhou, in the north-western province of Gansu, hundreds of kilometres from the epicentre.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...1ecc86bbbe.jpg

Reported Deaths:

Sichuan province: 8,533
Shaanxi province: 61
Gansu province: 48
Chongqing municipality: 50
Yunnan province: 1

As reported by Xinhua, 1700 GMT Monday

[miokomioko]

That is one gnarly fucking earthquake in probably one of the worst places for it to happen. I'm sure shitty apartment buildings in central bum-fuck China aren't built to any substantial code for such a tragic event. Is it just me or does $2.89 million not seem like much govermnental support given that 80% of buildings are destroyed accompanied with such a massive number of survivors with injuries...?

[Beckwin]

China's President Hu Jintao called for an "all out" effort to help earthquake victims. Within two hours of the quake, Premier Wen Jiabao was flying to Sichuan to oversee relief work.

Note to President Bush: this is how you respond to a domestic natural disaster.

China's density makes earthquakes so perilous. I hope the toll doesn't go too much higher. It's really sad that the quake happened during school/work hours too.

[Tyr]

What's going on in the East!? Cyclone Nargis & now this.

[Demosthenes11]

Real classy guys. This isn't /b/. Nobody thinks you're funny or a winner for being the first one in with the insensitive rimshots.

lol, totally not true

[Karbuncle]

Watch as the death toll rises

Why is it an option to watch the death toll rise?

[Correction]

Real classy guys. This isn't /b/. Nobody thinks you're funny or a winner for being the first one in with the insensitive rimshots.

lol, totally not true

Maybe when the topic is some politician's gaffe, sure. But we're talking about thousands dead and tens of thousands homeless. Jokes like 'hurr RMT farms' are pretty pathetic newfaggotry. Nobody's keeping score on who makes the first tasteless joke.

[sephir]

That is one gnarly fucking earthquake in probably one of the worst places for it to happen. I'm sure shitty apartment buildings in central bum-fuck China aren't built to any substantial code for such a tragic event. Is it just me or does $2.89 million not seem like much govermnental support given that 80% of buildings are destroyed accompanied with such a massive number of survivors with injuries...?

2.89M does not sound like much but your thinking of it from an American perspective. To most people that amount is worth 10 or more times its value. I don't know China's economic value of a dollar so I can't really say, but that does seem pretty small and is probly just a initial payment type thing. Expect a good bit more within a little bit.

[Richybear]

If only they had a JP Button to get out of AoE range.

[Beckwin]

Real classy guys. This isn't /b/. Nobody thinks you're funny or a winner for being the first one in with the insensitive rimshots.

lol, totally not true

Maybe when the topic is some politician's gaffe, sure. But we're talking about thousands dead and tens of thousands homeless. Jokes like 'hurr RMT farms' are pretty pathetic newfaggotry. Nobody's keeping score on who makes the first tasteless joke.

You're forgetting about spoiled misanthropic neocons in need of "lulz".

[Shuemue]

Real classy guys. This isn't /b/. Nobody thinks you're funny or a winner for being the first one in with the insensitive rimshots.

lol, totally not true

Maybe when the topic is some politician's gaffe, sure. But we're talking about thousands dead and tens of thousands homeless. Jokes like 'hurr RMT farms' are pretty pathetic newfaggotry. Nobody's keeping score on who makes the first tasteless joke.

Look at who you're talking to, he's a stupid little kid who thinks laughing at the misery of others is cool.

[Demosthenes11]

heh, I didn't even make a joke. I'm just pointing out there are people that get lulz out of it. Doesn't make them bad people. Are people who make jokes about their dead grandpa bad people? Does a certain amount of time have to pass before jokes are acceptable? Why do holocaust and dead baby jokes exist?

lighten up a little bit jesus lol

[Shuemue]

No, you didn't make a joke, you just encouraged the other wankers who did.

[wyrmtung]

From CNN article in OP:

Watch as the death toll rises

Geez, CNN, maybe you wanna rephrase that link you have?