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Deadly Quake Devastates Central China

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The New York Times

Published: May 13, 2008

CHENGDU, China - A powerful earthquake hit central China on Monday, toppling thousands of homes, factories and offices, trapping students in schools and killing at least 10,000. Tremors shook buildings as far away as Bangkok.

Landslides, power outages and fallen mobile phone towers left much of the affected area cut off from the outside world and limited information about the damage. But snapshots of concentrated devastation suggested the death toll could rise.

In the town of Juyuan, a middle school collapsed, trapping 900 students in the rubble and setting off a frantic search for survivors that stretched through the night.

Teenagers struggled to break free from the rubble, "while others were crying out for help," state media said. Families waited in the rain as rescuers wrote the names of the dead on a blackboard.

Two chemical factories in Shifang were destroyed, spilling 80 tons of toxic, liquid ammonia, officials said.

The 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck at 2:28 p.m. and was centered 55 miles northwest of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, according to China's State Seismological Bureau.

More than 1,000 aftershocks jolted the region, and the quake was felt nearly 1,000 miles away in Beijing.

Officials mobilized some 50,000 soldiers to help with rescue efforts, state media said. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao flew to the scene.

He was later shown on television standing outside the heavily damaged Traditional Medicine Hospital in Dujiangyan, shouting encouragement at people trapped in it.

"Hang on a bit longer. The troops are rescuing you," he said. "As long as there is the slightest hope, we will never relax our efforts."

In Chengdu, clusters of people were huddled outside, many saying they were too fearful of aftershocks to go indoors. Many wore plastic slickers in the steady drizzle. "We can't get to sleep. We're afraid of the earthquake. We're afraid of all the shaking," said 52-year-old factory worker Huang Ju, who took her elderly mother out of the Jinjiang District People's Hospital. Outside, Huang sat in a wheelchair wrapped in blankets while her mother, who was ill, slept in a hospital bed next to her.

Chengdu's Huaxi Hospital received 180 patients from hard-hit surrounding counties. "The first patients who came had jumped from buildings because they were frightened," a hospital spokesman said.

About 4,000 patients had been relocated from wards on the hospital's upper floors to a courtyard outdoors. The patients were sitting in the rain, covered in plastic.

Tang Hong, 50, sat beside her husband, Yan Chaozhong, in the hospital. They had been in their fourth-floor apartment when the quake hit.

She and her husband tried to escape down a stairwell but a second tremor knocked her husband down the stairs and he broke three ribs.

She also wept as she described how a school for handicapped and deaf students collapsed as the children were in class. "It was horrible," she said. "The entire school building collapsed."

Information from The Washington Post and The Associated Press was used in this report.

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