A massive earthquake toppled buildings across a wide area of central China on Monday, killing more than 8,533 people, trapping hundreds of students under the rubble of schools and causing a toxic chemical leak in one of the worst quakes in decades. The 7.8-magnitude earthquake devastated a region of small cities and towns set amid steep hills northeast of Sichuan’s provincial capital of Chengdu. The official Xinhua news agency reported 8,533 people died in Sichuan alone and dozens of others in surrounding areas.
[The Indian embassy in Bei jing said that according to the information available so far, no Indians were affected by the earthquake, PTI reported from the Chinese capital.
“No problem (has been reported) so far, as far as Indians are concerned,” it quoted embassy sources as saying. Indian diplomats said they had checked with their contacts in Chengdu and elsewhere.] In Beichuan county, just east of the epicentre, 80 per cent of the buildings had collapsed and some 10,000 people were injured aside from 3,000 to 5,000 dead, Xinhua said. It and other state media said a chemical plant in Shifang city cratered, burying hundreds of people and spilling more than 80 tons of toxic liquid ammonia from the site. In Juyuan town in Dujiangyan city, just south of the epicentre, the middle school collapsed, burying the students and immediately killing four ninth graders, Xinhua reported.
Xinhua said its reporters in Juyuan town saw buried teenagers struggling to break free from the rubble “while others were crying out for help.” 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 small mechanical winches or their hands to move concrete slabs. Xinhua said 50 bodies had been pulled from the debris but did not say if they were alive