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BEIJING: A powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Monday close to
densely populated areas of southwest China, killing at least five
persons and rattling cities across a swathe of Southeast Asia.
At least four children were killed and more than
100 injured when the quake toppled two primary schools in the vast
city of Chongqing near the epicenter, China’s official Xinhua news
agency reported.
Another person was killed in neighboring Sichuan
province by a collapsing water tower, Xinhua said, adding that
President Hu Jintao had urged an “all-out” effort to rescue
victims.
More people were feared dead after a local
official said “rows of houses” had collapsed in Dujiangyan, a
city with a population of 600,000.
Military troops were ordered to help with the
disaster relief work and the international airport at Chengdu, near
the epicenter, was closed.
Xinhua said Premier Wen Jiabao was on his way to
the region.
The quake struck 93 kilometers (58 miles) from
Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province and a city of more than 12
million people, and about 260 kilometers from Chongqing and its 30
million.
The State Seismological Bureau located its
epicenter in Wenchuan County, a mountainous region home to the
Wolong Nature Reserve, China’s leading research and breeding base
for endangered giant pandas.
Xinhua quoted an official saying the landmark
Three Gorges Dam in Sichuan province had not been affected.
But buildings shook in Beijing and Shanghai,
residents reported, with many people evacuating tower blocks and
rushing onto the street. There were no immediate reports of damage
there.
“There was a lot of shaking. I felt a bit
dizzy,” said Lilian Wu, a marketing official with a fund
management firm on the 37th floor of Shanghai’s landmark Jinmao
Tower.
Tremors were also felt in Bangkok, Hong Kong,
Hanoi and Taipei, residents there said.
Both the Chinese seismological bureau and the US
Geological Survey, which use different scales, measured it at 7.8.
The earthquake struck shortly before 2.30 p.m.
(0630 GMT), according to the US agency, at a depth of just 10
kilometers (six miles).
A reporter for CCTV news in Chengdu said
residents had poured out onto the streets but public transport and
electricity supplies remained operational.
The tremor, however, appeared to have disrupted
cellular telecommunications in the city, he added.
State television also said there appeared to be
no infrastructure problems in Chongqing.
The phone network in Chengdu and elsewhere
around the country appeared to suffer a meltdown as people tried to
find out what happened.
Two residents near downtown Chengdu whom Agence
France-Presse contacted by phone said they felt a violent shaking
that threw glassware to the floor and toppled street lights.
-- AFP
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