Large Earthquake jolts southwest China, 4 children reported dead and
hundreds of others injured
*
12 May 2008 08:24:50 GMT
Source: Reuters
* 7.8 magnitude quake hits Sichuan province, China

* Premier Wen Jiabao on way to epicentre

* Rescue teams ready to go to scene (Adds quotes, details)

By Lindsay Beck

BEIJING, May 12 (Reuters) - An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 struck
China's Sichuan province on Monday, less than 100 km (60 miles) from the
provincial capital of Chengdu, followed by a series of smaller tremors.

There were 4 children reported dead and hundreds of others injured

The quake was felt across much of China and as far southwest as Bangkok,
Thailand's capital, some 3,300 km (2,050 miles) away, where office
buildings swayed for several minutes.

Premier Wen Jiabao was flying to Chengdu, a fast-growing metropolis of
10 million people and famous for its Giant Panda Breeding Research Base,
state television said. President Hu Jintao had demanded that any injured
are rescued immediately, Xinhua news agency said.

The city is around 1,300 miles (2,090 km) southwest of Beijing.

"All the buildings are swaying back and forth," said a university
student in the central city of Wuhan, adding that people had rushed
outside and one single-storey building had collapsed.

"We felt continuous shaking for about two or three minutes," said
another office worker. "All the people in our office are rushing
downstairs. We're still feeling slight tremblings."

An employee at the local newspaper in Mianyang in Sichuan said there had
been several earthquakes. USGS said there had been an aftershock of
magnitude 6.0 at 0643 GMT in roughly the same location and another at
0734 of magnitude 5.4.

One of China's tallest buildings, the Jinmao Tower in Shanghai, as well
as other highrise buildings were ordered evacuated after the quake and
aftershocks. Office workers in some buildings were later allowed to return.

HOSPITAL EVACUATED

"The air-conditioning unit fell off the wall. Vases are all broken," a
resident in Mianyang, in Sichuan province, told Reuters.

"The sick in hospital have been moved outside to open fields. There is
no electricity and no mobile phone reception. People are afraid of
aftershocks."

Many workers poured from their buildings in Beijing's financial centre
after a second quake, or aftershock, measuring 3.9 on the Richter scale,
jolted the eastern Beijing suburb of Tongzhou, but there were no visible
signs of damage. The subway system was unaffected.

The U.S. Geological Survey said on its website
(http://earthquake.usgs.gov) that the main quake struck at 0628 GMT at a
depth of 29 km (18 miles).

Sources said there was no immediate impact to the Three Gorges Dam
project, the weight of whose massive reservoir, hundreds of kilometres
from Chengdu, experts have said could increase the risk of tremors.

A source at the biggest refinery in western China, Lanzhou, said the
plant also appeared unaffected by the quake.

An official with the Sichuan provincial seismic bureau said the
epicentre of the quake was in Wenchuan county, in the Aba Tibetan and
Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, a mountainous area populated mostly by Han
Chinese but with sizeable Qiang and Tibetan populations.

RESCUE TEAMS READY

On Chinese state television, a reporter said that telephone calls to
Wenchuan were not connecting. State TV also said the government was
preparing to send rescue and aid teams to the region.

A receptionist at the Tibet Hotel in Chengdu said the hotel had
evacuated its guests, but said things were "calm" there now. "It was
very sudden and I am not sure what has happened elsewhere, but we are OK
here," the receptionist said.

The quake was felt as far away as Vietnam and Thailand, startling office
workers in high-rise buildings.

"We have a number of reports that high buildings along Sukhumvit and
Sathorn roads (in Bangkok) felt the tremors, but there are no reports of
damage," a geologist at Thailand's Meteorological Department told Reuters.

High-rise residential and office towers in the western suburbs of
Vietnam's capital, Hanoi also shook for several seconds, witnesses said,
but there was no visible damage. Hundreds of residents and office
workers left the buildings as a precaution.

(Reporting by Jason Subler and Darren Schuettler; Writing by David Fox;
Editing by Jeremy Laurence)