Earthquake hit Sichuan China leaving thousands dead

[peterloo]

Summary:
2008 Sichuan earthquake occurred at 14:28:04.1 China Standard Time on 12 May 2008 with its epicenter in Wenchuan County , Sichuan province of the PRC. It had a magnitude of 7.8 Ms according to the State Seismological Bureau of China and 7.9 Mw according to the United States Geological Survey. The epicenter was 90 kilometres (55 miles) WNW of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan. The earthquake was felt as far away as Beijing and Shanghai, where office buildings swayed with the tremor, Pakistan,Thailand, and Vietnam. With 11,921 recently confirmed dead so far, it was the deadliest and strongest earthquake to hit China since the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake, which killed approximately 250,000 people.


(as what the format suggests, it is a direct copy of Wikipedia. It helps you to get a brief idea of what is going on.)

Additional links for those who want to know more:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7395496.stm "Hundred buried" by China quake
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7397489.stm Search for China quake survivors
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7397845.stm Chaotic yet organized effort
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7398083.stm Eyewitness' fear and shock
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7398065.stm Children pulled from rubble

(edited since I wanted to remove the links in the Wikipedia quote which would be quite annoying)

[Tchocky]

Saw it on the news this morning. Scary stuff.

Hope you and yours aren't near it.

[Schroeder]

That is really nasty. First Burma now China. At least the Chinese government has announced to let foreign help into the country in opposite to Burma.

[Jacky Fisher]

If they screw up, this could really hurt the Beijing government (with all the pollution, corruption and violence by government officials.)

[peterloo]

Following the blizzard earlier this year and the deadly Tangshan earthquake which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, I think the government's action implies that they learned something from these lessons. They activated the plans which are designed to stop the mounting death toll.

The objective, of course, is to divert attention away from the embarassing Tibet stuff, and also promote goodwill among her people and also to the Westeners.

[Dmitry Markov]

Very scary things... Our МЧС (Ministry for Emergency Situations) have sent some aid already.

[郑现莉]

'Quake lake' flood fears for 1.3m people | World news | The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/27/chinaearthquake.china)