China quake death toll rises above 8,700

China quake death toll rises above
8,700
A powerful earthquake toppled 倒塌 buildings,
schools and chemical plants Monday in central
China, killing more than 8,700 people and
trapping 陷阱 untold numbers in mounds 土石堆 of
concrete, steel and earth in the country's worst
quake in three decades.

一次強大的地震在星期一在華中傾倒建設，學校和化工
廠，殺害超過8,700個人和在三十年在國家最壞諼誤最多
的震動中的混凝土，鋼和地球的土堤中俘獲數不清的數
字。

The 7.9-magnitude quake devastated a region of
small cities and towns set amid steep 陡峭的 hills
north of Sichuan's provincial capital of Chengdu.
Striking in midafternoon, it emptied office
buildings across the country in Beijing and could
be felt as far away as Vietnam.

7.9量級震動摧毀小的城市和城鎮的一個地區在在四川成都
的的省會以北的陡峭的山崗之中放置。 在midafternoon
中引人注目，它在北京在全國各地把辦公室建設倒空並且
能被感到觸感覺和越南一樣遙遠。

Snippets 不知天高地厚的年輕人 from state media
and photos posted on the Internet underscored
強調 the immense 無限的 scale of the devastation
蹂躪;荒廢. In the town of Juyuan, south of the
epicenter 震中, a three-story high school
collapsed, burying as many as 900 students and
killing at least 50, the official Xinhua news agency
said. Photos showed people using cranes 起重機,
mechanical hoists 起重機 and their hands to
remove slabs of concrete and steel.

Buried teenagers struggling to break free from
the rubble, "while others were crying out for
help," Xinhua said. Families waited in the rain near
the wreckage 殘骸 as rescuers 援救者 wrote the
names of the dead on a blackboard, Xinhua said.

The earthquake hit one of the last homes of the
giant panda at the Wolong Nature Reserve and
panda breeding center, in Wenchuan county,
which remained out of contact, Xinhua said.

In Chengdu 成都市, it crashed telephone networks
and hours later left parts of the city of 10 million
in darkness.


SOURCE WILLIAM FOREMAN, Associated Press
Writer China quake death toll rises above 8,700