Quake death toll nears 10,000

China- The death toll from a powerful earthquake in central China has climbed to nearly 10,000 in the worst-hit province, state news reports said today.

Yesterday’s 7.9-magnitude quake devastated a region of small cities and towns in an area of Sichuan province north of the capital of Chengdu.

The official Xinhua News Agency said about 600 people died in Shifang city, which was the site of a major chemical leak. The report did not say whether people were killed by the quake or the chemical leak. Xinhua said as many as 2,300 people in the city were still buried under rubble, including more than 900 students.

Landslides have blocked roads into the hardest-hit areas, and rescue workers were heading there on foot. The mid-afternoon quake emptied office buildings across the country in Beijing, could be felt as far away as Vietnam. In Chengdu it crashed telephone networks and hours later left parts of the city of 10 million in darkness. Xinhua said nearly 10,000 people died in central China’s Sichuan province alone and 216 others in three other provinces and the mega-city of Chongqing. Worst affected were four counties including the quake’s epicentre in Wenchuan, 60 miles north west of Chengdu.