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Nearly nine months after a devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province, China, left 80,000 people dead or missing, a growing number of American and Chinese scientists are suggesting that the calamity was triggered by a four-year-old reservoir built close to the earthquake’s geological fault line. In Dujiangyan, a hard-hit city, right, a girl held an egg as her father carried her to safety. A Columbia University scientist who studied the quake has said that it may have been triggered by the weight of 320 million tons of water in the Zipingpu Reservoir less than a mile from a well-known major fault....

well, the toll now is 19509. but local authorities estimates that the eventual toll may be over 50,000,because there are still thousands of people buried under the rubbles...... The relative data today: Toll:19,509; Injured:102,100; But luckily,13,400+ people have be rescued from rubbles by now.

China's Defense Ministry said early Thursday that it has ordered the deployment of 101 more helicopters to the quake-hit Sichuan province. The General Staff of the People's Liberation Army has ordered the airborne troops of the Army and Air Force to send 71 more transport helicopters to help the quake relief work, a spokesman of the Ministry told Xinhua. He said the civil aviation department will also send 30 transport helicopters to the quake-hit area. These helicopters will engage in airdropping materials, transferring the wounded and delivering troops, said the spokesman.

A nurse tries to comfort Liu Lu, an 11-year-old girl who survived Monday's powerful 7.9 magnitude quake after her school collapsed in Hanwang, as she cries in pain while receiving medical treatment at a hospital in Deyang, in Sichuan province, China, Thursday, May 15, 2008. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) BEIJING - First, the water level in a pond inexplicably plunged. Then, thousands of toads appeared on streets in a nearby province. Finally, just hours before China's worst earthquake in three decades, animals at a local zoo began acting strangely. ADVERTISEMENT As bodies are pulled from the wreckage of Monday's quake,...

China earthquake: Exodus begins from Sichuan By Richard Spencer in Hanwang Town, Sichuan Province Last Updated: 11:05PM BST 14/05/2008 Tens of thousands of people have poured down from the mountainsides of Sichuan searching for food and water as rescuers evacuated towns where more than 40,000 people are dead, buried or missing. Rescue teams are digging through rubble, trying to reach survivors of a powerful earthquake in China. Helicopters began to airlift residents out of the villages of Wenchuan county at the epicentre of the earthquake which struck China on Monday, while others walked for hours into the valleys and plains...

HANWANG, China - Thousands of Chinese soldiers rushed on Wednesday to repair a dam badly cracked by the country's massive earthquake, while rescuers arrived for the first time in the epicenter of the disaster. China's top economic planning body said that the quake had damaged 391 mostly small dams. It left "extremely dangerous" cracks in the Zipingpu Dam upriver from the earthquake-hit city of Dujiangyan and some 2,000 soldiers were sent to repair the damage, the official Xinhua News Agency said. Xinhua said Dujiangyan would be "swamped" if major problems emerged at the dam. He Biao, the director of the...

Thank you for all the people who take care of the earthquake in China! I am a student in Dalian, a city in the north of China,I never feel the quake here untill now. But I see the whole society ,include the students, companies and goverment are trying their best to help the people in Sichuan province. I just want to talk about the facts besides me after the earthquake. Now I have donate all my money in the phone account as well as my classmates, although it is less than 100 yuan. The whole university is statistic the student...

“I haven’t been able to sleep,” explained a very tired looking student to me in class today. “One of my best friends is attending university near Mianyang and we have so far been unable to get in contact with her. We don’t think she made it.” Thousands of people throughout China are also going without sleep as they desperately wait for information about their friends and loved ones in Sichuan Province. Some cities in Sichuan, such as Wenchuan and Mianyang, have been completely cut off from the rest of China in the wake of the deadly earthquake on Monday. Only...

Beijing (ANTARA News) - A first batch of 100 elite troops parachuted on Wednesday into a cut off area close to the epicentre of a massive earthquake in southwest China, state media reported. The troops landed in badly hit Maoxian county just north of the epicentre of Monday's 7.9 magnitude quake, Xinhua news agency aid. Efforts to parachute soldiers in the day before were stymied by heavy rain, which has left survivors huddled under muddy tarpaulins. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said earlier 100,000 military personnel and police had been mobilised for the relief effort.

To: All I want to let the chinese that are really here for support know that I am sorry for being so rude,and crass during this time. Now I do not like the CCP at all and belive in democracy for everyone. I feel angry and jaded at the world at this moment in my life because someone really close to me in my family died a few weeks ago. I have had a rough year and can be very snappy and mean at times. I do apologize and my prayers go out to all the innocents lost. I was...

China quake toll soars as full horror begins to emerge 14/05/2008 DUJIANGYAN (AFP) - The full horror of the devastating China earthquake began to emerge Wednesday as rescuers discovered whole towns all but wiped off the map, pushing the death toll well above 20,000. Military and police teams punched into the heart of the disaster zone, with 100 troops parachuting into a county that was previously cut off while planes and helicopters air-dropped emergency supplies. But the message that came back from this mountainous corner of southwestern Sichuan province was that town after town was flattened by the 7.9-magnitude quake...

An earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale has hit China's Sichuan province. The tremor was felt across the entire region - shaking buildings in the capital, Beijing, as well as the Thai capital, Bangkok, and Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. US Geological Survey said the quake struck 57 miles north-west of the city of Chengdu at 2.29pm local time (6.28am GMT). Some 10 million people live in Chengdu.

Thousands of buildings have collapsed and 11 people have been killed after a strong earthquake rattled east China on Saturday morning (local time). The China National Seismic Observation Network says the quake measured 5.7 on the Richter scale and struck at 8:49am. A local official has told AFP a total of 8,072 buildings have been destroyed in Jiujiang county as a result of the quake. "Six people were killed in Jiujiang county," the local official said. "Another 247 were injured and 8,072 buildings were toppled." An official in nearby Ruichang city says five people have been killed there, while...