China Tragedy

News broke early today of an earth quake in Sichuan. My heart sunk as this is where my step MIL is from and all of her immediate family still live in Chengdu and the surrounding provinces.

We have news that her family are OK, but their apartment block in Chengdu is sealed off so we don't know yet if it structural damage or if it will be habitable again. My FIL was also suppose to be flying to Chengdu tomorrow.

We are one of the lucky families, and my thoughts and feeling go out to those in China who have not been as fortunate as us.

Here is a news clip from Skynews.

The

Xinhua News Agency reported 8,533 people died in Sichuan province alone and more than 200 others in three other provinces and the city of Chongqing.

The tremor, in south west China, has also buried 900 teenagers in a school and reports said that 50 students were confirmed dead.

"The situation is worse than we previously estimated and we need more people here to help," the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao said as he visited the disaster relief headquarters.

State media said some 80% of the buildings in one county of Sichuan have collapsed, including a hospital.

Also, hundreds of people were buried in two collapsed chemical plants, state media reported online.

Xinhua said about 6,000 people were evacuated and more than 80 tonnes of liquid ammonia had leaked.

Roads and phone lines have been cut off since the 7.8 magnitude quake struck at 2:30pm local time.

The quake's epicentre was in the nearby Sichuan county of Wenchuan and its force caused buildings to sway across China and as far away as the Thai capital Bangkok.

Shock waves from the quake were even detected by the British Geological Survey.

"At 0628 GMT today, the rocks either side of a major fault in south-west China suddenly and violently broke apart," spokesman Roger Musson said.

"The shock waves spread out in all directions, like waves in a pond. In a mere seven minutes, the fastest waves reached the UK.

"BGS seismologists analysed the data and prepared an alert to inform concerned parties - government and relief organisations."

Dutch ex-pat Marco Duits told Sky News that he was at work in China when the earthquake happened.

"I was sitting in my office and suddenly everything began to shake," he said.

"The third-floor started to break-up. Everybody started to run out. We were outside and watched the whole building shaking.

"It did not collapse, but it shook and fell forwards."

The 900 students were buried in the rubble of a collapsed three-storey school building in the Sichuan city of Dujiangyan. A rescue operation is under way.