Disastrous earthquake in China by Beata Novomeska

In China there was a disastrous earthquake. It was the worst one within last three decades. In central China the buildings, schools and chemical plants toppled. The quake killed more than 8,700 people. It trapped concrete, steel and earth. The earthquake reached the 7.9-magnitude and devastated a region of small cities and towns north of Sichuan's provincial capital of Chengdu.The quake was felt as far away as Vietnam. News on media and photos on the Internet emphasized the vast range of the devastation. In the town of Juyuan, a three-story high school was damaged, 50 students were killed and buried as many as 900. People used cranes, mechanical hoists to remove slabs of concrete and steel.Parents of the dead students built religious altars and burnt paper money in a traditional honor for their child in the afterlife. Moreover, the earthquake reached one of the last homes of the giant panda in Wenchuan county, which remained out of contact. In another parts of China it crashed telephone networks and cut off people of electricity. People couldn't get sleep they were worrying of the quake. 8533 people died in Sichuan and 216 in three other provinces and city of Chongqing. The most affected were four counties including the epicenter in Wenchuan. Apart from other things the earthquake caused landslides and roads left impassable. In Beichuan county, 80 percent of the buildings fell, from 3,000 to 5,000 people died and 10,000 were injured. Two chemical plants in the city of Shifang collapsed and spilt more than 80 tons of toxic liquid ammonia. To the befallen area it was sent more than 20,000 soldiers, police and reservists.

by Beata Novomeska for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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edited by Zuzana Lakostikova