Earthquake of a magnitude 7.8 reported in China *UPDATE* 'to top 50,000' killed

Originally posted by Hakii
This is not good, Ive been following the earthquakes over at Quake watch, Things just are not seeming so good around the world and the ring of fire. Is this only the first sign of things that are to come? There have been some interesting theories for predicting these earthquakes, which seem to correspond with each other, when one hits in Place X, another across the globe hits in place B.



Mother nature doesn't seem to be very pleased as of late.

We should be vigilant as to the opposing and balancing effects on the North American continent for a while. Taking turns with something like this is not a good thing.

reply to post by Illahee


A truly humane and gentle sentiment... a star for you... unfortunately there will be posts from people on here soon enough cheering the disaster.

I have two friends, a Baha'i' couple who are teaching english at a local university in Sichuan. When they left last August I gave them some homemade prayer beads. A mutual friend went over to visit them in Febuary and brought back these huge (1 inch across) rosewood Buddhist prayer beads for me.

I am still trying to find out what city they are in and if they are alright.

Thank you for your prayer.

Looks like they just had another one


5.1
Date-Time Monday, May 12, 2008 at 14:15:26 UTC
Monday, May 12, 2008 at 10:15:26 PM at epicenter

Location 32.120°N, 104.612°E
Depth 10 km (6.2 miles) set by location program
Region SICHUAN-GANSU BORDER REGION, CHINA
Distances 79 km (49 miles) N (351°) from Mianyang, Sichuan, China
119 km (74 miles) WSW (253°) from Guangyuan, Sichuan, China
174 km (108 miles) NNE (16°) from Chengdu, Sichuan, China
1241 km (771 miles) N (355°) from HANOI, Vietnam

Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 7 km (4.3 miles); depth fixed by location program
Parameters NST= 54, Nph= 54, Dmin=>999 km, Rmss=0.85 sec, Gp= 83°,
M-type=body magnitude (Mb), Version=6
Source U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center:
World Data Center for Seismology, Denver

Event ID us2008rybq

Looks like they have upped the death toll to 7000+, my God, how much worse is this going to get

link

Originally posted by purplemonkey

Originally posted by IchiNiSan
These are the kind of sad news which everyone can safely tune in Xinhua to see the latest reports. There is no need to hide or downplay the disaster as someone suggested.
[edit on 12/5/08 by IchiNiSan]

i swear this guy works for the Chinese Government... are you part of an effort to somehow convince westerners that the Chinese government gives two (Snip) about its people because it doesn't.

ANDＩSWEAR TO GOD THAT YOU ARE THE MOST IGNORANT RACISTIC MONKEY I HAVE EVER ENCOUNTERED ON ATS!!!!!

There are already over 8000 people confirmed dead in this disaster and you still need to pull your incredible paranoiid tricks INSULTIVE, no your words are simply RACISTIC comments on a public board which is supposedly denying ignorance!!!!!!!!!!

The toll is now up to 7,560

I hope that all of our countrys pull together to send some quake teams there, I know here in the UK we have a good team as well as dogs that help find live people in the rubble,

I feel so sad for all those involved,



[edit on 12-5-2008 by asala]

reply to post by IchiNiSan


I second that. Some people can be truley ignorant. Glad to see you here. What is going on with aftershocks, and have you heard anymore about the schools.

At the place of the epicenter 7651, in Chengdu and many other places a few dozens more....

Just got connected to an ex-employee who live in the neigbour, they are coming back to Shenzhen tomorrow with their 1 year old baby.

I really expect the worst, according to her the area is under-developed, like most of the rural areas, so nothing were really built with earthquakes of this magnitude in mind

Our premier Wen Jiabao already arrived in Sichuan to coordinate the crisis management. And there are still some racistic monkeys accusing our leaders not caring about the citizens! I did not see Cheney going to a New Orleans, the same day to coordinate any crisis management!

I am unfortuanately expecting the news to get much worse.
In one of the links posted, they stated approx. 5000 dead in ONE county...

I have to wonder how much damage the aftershocks are creating to already fatigued structures.

8500+

This really is quite frightening. How accurate are these figures?

reply to post by Witness2008


8533 confirmed dead and rumors goes that there is a small town with 3000 killed, not sure if it is included in the 8533 ones

It happened right during school times, so many schools collapsed and a lot of students and children are still buried and missing

reply to post by asala


Nice gestures Asala,

I wonder if the aid 'trying' to be provided to Burma right now might be better served in China.

I know Canada's (as well as others) DART team can be on move in less than 24 hrs, I am not sure if they have already been sent to Burma though. (could have mulitple teams, not sure and don't have time to look it up)

My heart goes out to all of those affected by this. Be strong and remember to help wherever possible.

reply to post by asala


We have a good team here in Canada as well, I believe they were on scene in the USA for Katrina before FEMA was even close.

Originally posted by thebox
8500+

This really is quite frightening. How accurate are these figures?

Wen Jiaobao is leading the crisis team himself now, he is the second man of China, so we don't expect that any local corrupted officials would dare to downplay any casualties reports.

Right after the cleanup we should pick up many of the local corrupted officials, constructors and developers and give them the death penalty for building these cardhouses!!!!!!!

EDIT - Correction: Should be "ALL of those corrupted!"

[edit on 12/5/08 by IchiNiSan]

This is absolutely terrible. Hopefully the toll won't rise much further. My thoughts are with those who are affected and to those members in China, be safe.

www.iris.edu...

You can check under " Earthquake Headlines "

[edit on 12-5-2008 by observe50]

I imagine the deathtoll will be in the 10 to 100's of thousands due to the early deathtoll numbers we now have, the density of Chinese population centers and the severity of the earthquake. Many of those buildings were no match for such shaking. In addition, the severe damage will hamper recovery efforts leading to an increasing deathtoll.

Times like these make me sad that the world has so much time and energy spent on methods to destroy each other and when natural destruction does occur we don't have the skills and equipment to implement a massive recovery operation. The helicopters after Katrina and the 2004 tsunami are exceptions to this.

Bloody hell, I've only just found out about this... This is terrible.

I just hope it doesn't get worse.

Peace.


[Edit]

news.bbc.co.uk...

The BBC is now stating 8500 deaths...

So sad.

[edit on 12-5-2008 by mr-lizard]

We can only assume that if this was a manufactured tectonic event, there will be some sort of retaliation in the near future. Though, I have no idea if there are ways to detect whether or not ELF/scalar weapons have been used. I saw an article earlier today about Chinese exporters rejecting US currency, maybe this has something to do with that.

Anyway, I'm sure most of the people here had a good ride in their lives, and they'll probably be back soon for another trip on the merry-go-earth, preferably after our period of global self reflection at the destruction of our civilization and the birth of the next. People are checking in and out all of the time these days.

You have to have a sense of humor about stuff like this.

Anyone else looking forward to the hurricane season?!

Sorry man, having a little trouble finding the humour in this event. regardless of the cause this is terrible. You could try and be a little more compassionate.