The largest natural disaster to hit China in decades has struck in to the Sichuan county of Wenchuan. An earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale occurred at 1428 Beijing time, on Monday.
The worst hit area appears to be Beichuan county, 50km from the epicentre, where the BBC reports that 80% of buildings were destroyed and 3,000-5,000 people were killed.
Make no mistake, this is a huge quake – larger than the Kashmir Earthquake that caused so much suffering in 2005 – the tremors were felt as far away as Beijing (960 miles/1,545 km away).
About the response effort BBC’s Quentin Sommerville says “is one of the most open and speedy responses to an emergency he has ever seen from Chinese state media”. However torrential rain and damaged communications links are hindering the rescue efforts.
The Beijing Olympics Blog will not be updated regularly enough to give you the most up-to-date news on the situation, so please see the recommended links below for the best places:
The TIME blog has been updated numerous times already, relating the possible knock-on effects of the disaster. Discussion of the possibly impact on the Three Gorges Dam is one topic discussed already
The CDT is a realiable and very regularly updated source of facts and images of the quake
BBC News already has a couple of fact-filled reports on the situation, and check the main headlines to latest updates
Our thoughts are with those suffering from the impact of this disaster.
[...] blogging about other issues in light of the fact that thousands of people still left buried by the Earthquake in Sichuan. The death toll now exceeds 12,000 and is sure to increase. The Olympics seem relatively [...]
[...] A three minute silence was observed today at 2.28pm Beijing Time (6.28 GMT), one week after the terrible earthquake in Sichuan. This was accompanied by three minutes of noise by drivers of cars, ship and trains blasted their [...]
[...] blogging about other issues in light of the fact that thousands of people still left buried by the Earthquake in Sichuan. The death toll now exceeds 12,000 and is sure to increase. The Olympics seem relatively [...]