Rescuers combed through the rubble of collapsed buildings for survivors Thursday, more than a day after strong earthquakes shook a mountainous Tibetan region of China, killing nearly 600 people and injuring thousands.
The series of quakes flattened buildings across remote western Yushu county and sent survivors, many bleeding from their wounds, flooding into the streets of Jiegu township. State television showed block after devastated block of toppled mud and wood homes. Local officials said 85 percent of the buildings had been destroyed.
Residents and troops garrisoned in the town used shovels and their hands to pull survivors and bodies from the rubble much of the day Wednesday.
Several schools collapsed, with the state news agency saying at least 56 students died. Worst hit was the Yushu Vocational School, where the officials Xinhua News Agency cited a local education official as saying 22 students died, 20 of them girls.
The destruction of schools was an eerie echo of the massive magnitude-7.9 quake that hit neighboring Sichuan province two years ago, leaving nearly 90,000 people dead or missing. Thousands of students among the dead were killed when their schools collapsed. Poor design, shoddy construction and the lax enforcement of building codes were found to be rampant.
However, in affected areas of Qinhai this week most of the buildings fell, unlike in Sichuan where schools collapsed while buildings around them remained standing, giving the impression that schools were built to lower standards.
Source : http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gdspdDB0WaMv_An4A-NvHB_DwmCwD9F380BO0
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