Beijing
12 May 2008
Chinese authorities say a 7.8 magnitude earthquake has killed more than 8,700 people in the southwestern province of Sichuan. The official Xinhua news agency says 3,000 to 5,000 people have died in Sichuan's Beichuan county alone. Local officials say at least 80 percent of the buildings there have collapsed, and 10,000 more people are feared injured VOA's Stephanie Ho reports from Beijing.
The hardest hit county, Wenchuan, has more than 110,000 people and a large ethnic-Tibetan population. Wenchuan County is also home to the Wolong Nature Reserve, China's leading research and breeding base for endangered giant pandas.
In 1976, more than 270,000 people died when an earthquake struck the northern city of Tangshan. That temblor also measured 7.8 on the Richter scale.