From the BBC..
The dams are okay. But 15k people are dead.
Nearly 15,000 people died in the devastating earthquake that hit China's Sichuan province, the official Xinhua news agency has reported. More than 25,000 are still trapped in the rubble two days after the 7.9 quake struck, flattening homes, schools and entire villages and cutting roads.
Soldiers have begun to reach the isolated epicentre by helicopter and on foot, bringing much needed supplies. (The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 killed 3 thousand with a magnitude of 7.8).
The government has meanwhile downplayed fears about the stability of a dam. State media had earlier reported that soldiers were working to plug cracks in the Zipingpu Dam near the hard-hit city of Dujiangyan, which they described as "extremely dangerous." But today a manager said there was "no risk of collapse."
Sichuan's Vice-Governor Li Chengyun said incomplete figures suggested 14,463 people were dead, another 14,051 were missing, 25,788 were buried in the debris and 64,746 had been injured, Xinhua reports. The death toll could rise to 50k.
More than 4 million homes were destroyed.
People need first aid and food/water, blankets, shelter, and, in the words of led zeppelin, a whole lotta love.
First Myanmar, then this, in the span of 10 days (Myanmar made landfall on the 2nd, and China on the twelfth). Pretty crazy, eh? Did you know that 'Nargis' means 'daffodil' in Persian? At least the earthquake isn't as bad as the 1976 Tangshan (in China) that killed 250 thousand (that was also a 7.8 on the Richter scale, although some sources say as high as 8.2. Each number is 10x higher than the previous, being logarithmic, so I think a 7.9 is 9x a 7.0 instead of 8. The largest recorded earthquake was the Great Chilean Earthquake of May 22, 1960 which had a magnitude of 9.5.)
Oh, and by the way: No, it's not the end of the world. So just chill.
Update: There have been hundreds of aftershocks, including one measuring at 6.0. The quake is now believed to have killed 50,000. The number of confirmed deaths rose to 28,881. The Chinese authorities say that about five million people have been made homeless. The Chinese government says 198,347 people have been recorded injured, not just in Sichuan, where the quake struck, but in Gansu, Shaanxi, Chongqing, Hubei, Henan, and Guizhou provinces.
In Beichuan, near the epicenter, a traumatized, rattled, and panicked population evacuated their city for higher ground, in the midst of their rescue operations, upon receiving a false warning from the Xinhua news agency that a nearby lake was threatening to burst it's bank. Scary.
The dams are okay. But 15k people are dead.
Nearly 15,000 people died in the devastating earthquake that hit China's Sichuan province, the official Xinhua news agency has reported. More than 25,000 are still trapped in the rubble two days after the 7.9 quake struck, flattening homes, schools and entire villages and cutting roads.
Soldiers have begun to reach the isolated epicentre by helicopter and on foot, bringing much needed supplies. (The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 killed 3 thousand with a magnitude of 7.8).
The government has meanwhile downplayed fears about the stability of a dam. State media had earlier reported that soldiers were working to plug cracks in the Zipingpu Dam near the hard-hit city of Dujiangyan, which they described as "extremely dangerous." But today a manager said there was "no risk of collapse."
Sichuan's Vice-Governor Li Chengyun said incomplete figures suggested 14,463 people were dead, another 14,051 were missing, 25,788 were buried in the debris and 64,746 had been injured, Xinhua reports. The death toll could rise to 50k.
More than 4 million homes were destroyed.
People need first aid and food/water, blankets, shelter, and, in the words of led zeppelin, a whole lotta love.
First Myanmar, then this, in the span of 10 days (Myanmar made landfall on the 2nd, and China on the twelfth). Pretty crazy, eh? Did you know that 'Nargis' means 'daffodil' in Persian? At least the earthquake isn't as bad as the 1976 Tangshan (in China) that killed 250 thousand (that was also a 7.8 on the Richter scale, although some sources say as high as 8.2. Each number is 10x higher than the previous, being logarithmic, so I think a 7.9 is 9x a 7.0 instead of 8. The largest recorded earthquake was the Great Chilean Earthquake of May 22, 1960 which had a magnitude of 9.5.)
Oh, and by the way: No, it's not the end of the world. So just chill.
Update: There have been hundreds of aftershocks, including one measuring at 6.0. The quake is now believed to have killed 50,000. The number of confirmed deaths rose to 28,881. The Chinese authorities say that about five million people have been made homeless. The Chinese government says 198,347 people have been recorded injured, not just in Sichuan, where the quake struck, but in Gansu, Shaanxi, Chongqing, Hubei, Henan, and Guizhou provinces.
In Beichuan, near the epicenter, a traumatized, rattled, and panicked population evacuated their city for higher ground, in the midst of their rescue operations, upon receiving a false warning from the Xinhua news agency that a nearby lake was threatening to burst it's bank. Scary.
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