Toll in China Quake Is Worse Than Feared

Toll in China Quake Is Worse Than Feared

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/world/asia/01china.html

Li Fucui, 47, cries in front of the debris of her collapsed house,
which buried her brother-in-law, in Huili County, Sichuan Province.


By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: August 31, 2008

SHANGHAI — The devastation from an earthquake that struck southwestern China on Saturday is much worse than initially feared, state-run news media reported on Sunday, saying that the quake had damaged 258,000 homes and killed at least 32 people.

The earthquake, which was centered in Sichuan Province and had a magnitude of 6.1, damaged highways, reservoirs, bridges and hundreds of schools, and it forced the evacuation of more than 40,000 people in Sichuan and neighboring Yunnan Province, reported Xinhua, the state news agency. More than 230 people were reported injured.

Sichuan was devastated on May 12 by China’s worst natural disaster in over 30 years, a 7.9-magnitude earthquake that killed nearly 70,000 people and left millions homeless, so thoroughly damaging the region that recovery efforts were expected to take years, if not decades.

Since the quake hit at 4:30 p.m. Saturday, the region has suffered hundreds of aftershocks. The strongest was Sunday afternoon, when one with a preliminary magnitude of 5.1, was reported in Sichuan, but it was unclear whether there was any new damage, Chinese officials said.

Over the weekend, poor communication in the southern part of Sichuan was making it difficult for the government and news agencies to determine the scale of the damage or how many people had died.

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