50,000(+?) Die from 7.9 Earthquake in China

Officials say 50,000+ (updated from 10,000 5/15) people are dead after a 7.9-magnitude earthquake struck China on Monday, and the death toll is expected to rise. In Sichuan's Beichan county, about 80 per cent of the buildings have collapsed.

Ten thousand people are estimated to be injured, according to the Xinhua news agency.

The quake... struck at 2:28 p.m. local time, when office buildings, factories and schools were full. Nearly 900 Chinese students were feared buried after two schools collapsed in the municipality of Chongqing...

The quake made buildings sway in Beijing, about 2,000 kilometres away, and was also felt in Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam and as far away as Pakistan.

"We're really in the very early stages," Francis Markus of the Red Cross Federation told Canada AM from Beijing. "We don't know what the situation is at the heart of these earthquake-stricken areas."...

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake's epicentre is 92 kilometres northwest of Chengdu, Sichuan's capital, and 10 kilometres below the surface.

Ten million people live in Chengdu, best known for its giant panda breeding centre. Sichuan province is also home to about 1,200 pandas, which constitute about 80 per cent of the surviving panda population in the wild....