Another Major Aftershock
CNN reports that 70,000 homes ‘damaged’ in new China quake
CHENGDU, China (CNN) — A powerful 5.8 magnitude aftershock hit China’s Sichuan province Sunday, reportedly damaging more than 70,000 homes in the region where at least 60,000 people were killed by a powerful earthquake on May 12.
State media said at least one people died and 400 were hurt as a result of the latest seismic jolt, which came as Chinese officials warned that 69 dams in the province damaged in the original quake were in danger of bursting their banks.
…Meanwhile, the death toll from this month’s earthquake in China reached 62,664, a government official said Sunday. Another 23,775 are still missing.
At the Sunday news conference, a civil affairs ministry official said rescue workers have pulled alive 6,537 people from the rubble of the May 12 earthquake.
The US Geological Survey is reporting the shock as a 6.0 event, which suggests that there is still a lot of stress on the fault. Normally the aftershocks taper off in strength, but there have been several spikes in the 5.5 to 6.0 range since the initial event.
There will be even more misery and probably flooding when the expected heavy rains arrive.
2 comments
As usual, Communist China is only allowing specific news stories in their local press.
Stories like this one are being covered-up inside China. It is important that Western writers elevate the issue of corruption to the public attention it deserves.
The only reason for a building, like those schools, to “pancake” is because the reinforcement steel in the floor wasn’t tied to the walls. When a poured concrete building is “tied”, it moves as a unit; when it isn’t, each individual slab if free to move on its own, literally like a house of cards.
We have had storm surge push four-story buildings from their location, but the buildings were still structurally whole and intact. If you dug out a new foundation and leveled it you could push them back. The codes won’t allow it, but the buildings could have been reused.