NightBlogger

MIANYANG, China (AP) - A 5.3 magnitude aftershock struck China’s quake-battered Sichuan province Thursday amid concerns over rising water levels in a lake formed by landslides from the massive May 12 temblor.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported the aftershock struck at 12:41 p.m. (12:41 a.m. EDT) just south of the town of Qingchuan at the relatively shallow depth of 6 miles.

There were no immediate reports of new damage or injuries. Authorities had earlier begun evacuating people downstream from Tangjiashan lake, formed above the devastated town of Beichuan, after water rose to within 6 feet of flooding its bank. More

Reuters
China has found what it termed 50 “hazardous sources of radiation” due to last week’s earthquake, a senior official said on Friday, though he insisted the situation was under control. “Thirty-five of the radiation sources have been recovered, and the location of another 15 has been confirmed, but they have not yet been recovered…Three are buried in rubble and another 12 are in dangerous buildings, which staff cannot go into….” The disaster area is home to China’s chief nuclear weapons research lab in Mianyang, as well as several secretive atomic sites, but no nuclear power stations. Read more

Photo kiwanja
ALICIA CHANG/Ap
Last month, the USGS reported that the Golden State has a 46 percent chance of a 7.5 or larger quake in the next 30 years, and that such a quake probably would hit Southern California. The Northridge quake, which killed 72 people and caused $25 billion in damage, was much smaller at magnitude 6.7.

The scenario is focused on the San Andreas Fault, the 800-mile boundary where the Pacific and North American plates grind against each other. The fault is the source of some of the largest earthquakes in state history, including the monstrous magnitude-7.8 quake that reduced San Francisco to ashes and killed 3,000 people in 1906. Read more

Herald Tribune
HANWANG, China:
For 50 agonizing hours, firefighters worked to free Zhang Xiaoyan, eight months pregnant, from under concrete slabs on the second floor of an earthquake-shattered building. They worked gingerly, fearing the rubble would shift and crush her.

Finally, a bulldozer raised its scoop 16 feet and the rescuers gently laid the 34-year-old woman inside and slowly lowered her to the ground — to the cheers and applause of a group of spectators made homeless by Monday’s quake. Read more

AP: China Welcomes Foreign Aid As Death Toll Rises

Nick Macfie
BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Tuesday 18,645 people were buried under debris in the city of Mianyang, neighboring Wenchuan county, the epicenter of Monday’s devastating earthquake. Some 3,629 people had been confirmed dead. The death toll from China’s most devastating earthquake in three decades has jumped to more than 12,000, a top disaster relief official said on Tuesday, as storms hampered rescuers in the most devastated areas.

A powerful earthquake toppled buildings, schools and chemical plants Monday in central China, killing about 10,000 people and trapping untold numbers in mounds of concrete, steel and earth in the country’s worst quake in three decades.

Gulfnews
Paris/Washington: The violent quake that shook China’s Sichuan province yesterday is linked to a shift of the Tibetan plateau to the north and east, said specialists at the Paris Institute of Earth Physics. “There will certainly be many aftershocks,” said Paul Tapponnier, an expert on tectonics.

The quake, with a magnitude of 7.8, struck close to densely populated areas of Sichuan province and was felt across a swathe of southeast Asia. US intelligence analysts were, meanwhile, examining spy satellite images of Sichuan even as the death toll was projected to climb over 8,500, a defence official said yesterday.
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(Scot Yount, NECN) - The death toll from a 7.9 magnitude earthquake in China has climbed to nearly 10,000, according to state media reports. The quake, which was the country’s largest in three decades, devastated a region of small cities and towns in an area of Sichuan province north of the capital of Chengdu. Many New England Chinese are frantic with worry about family members.

BEIJING, May 12 (Reuters)
About 80 percent of the buildings in Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County in China’s southwestern Sichuan province collapsed when an earthquake hit the area on Monday, the official Xinhua news agency said. Xinhua cited the provincial disaster relief headquarters as estimating that about 3,000 to 5,000 people were feared dead and 10,000 injured in that county alone. The county lies northeast of the provincial capital of Chengdu. (Reporting by Jason Subler)

DUJIANGYAN, Sichuan, May 12 (Xinhua) — Nearly 900 students in southwest China’s Sichuan Province were feared buried when a high school building collapsed here in an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale on Monday afternoon. At least four teenagers were confirmed dead at Juyuan Middle School in Juyuan Township of Dujiangyan City, about 100 kilometers from the epicenter in Wenchuan County.

An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 struck China’s Sichuan province on Monday, less than 100 km (60 miles) from the provincial capital of Chengdu, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its website.

The quake was felt across much of China and as far west as Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, some 3,300 km (2050 miles) away, where office buildings swayed for several minutes. It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties or damage from the tremor. “We felt continuous shaking for about two or three minutes. All the people in our office are rushing downstairs. We’re still feeling slight tremblings,” said an office worker in Chengdu.
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From: ens@usgs.gov
—————————————————————-
== PRELIMINARY EARTHQUAKE REPORT ==

***This event supersedes event AT00057368.
Region: EASTERN SICHUAN, CHINA
Geographic coordinates: 31.084N, 103.266E
Magnitude: 7.5 Mw
Depth: 10 km
Universal Time (UTC): 12 May 2008 06:28:00
Time near the Epicenter: 12 May 2008 14:28:00
Local standard time in your area: 12 May 2008 06:28:00

Location with respect to nearby cities:
95 km (59 miles) WNW (303 degrees) of Chengdu, Sichuan, China
146 km (91 miles) WSW (256 degrees) of Mianyang, Sichuan, China
173 km (108 miles) NNW (346 degrees) of Leshan, Sichuan, China
1149 km (714 miles) NNW (347 degrees) of HANOI, Vietnam

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2008ryan.php