http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/12/china.quake/
This link tells of the damage near the epicenter due to the shallowness and also the population. Ditto what you said.
That CNN article has entirely the wrong population for the city. It’s over 10 million, not 2 million. Maybe someone heard it wrong.
It looks like I got something wrong with the coordinates (decimal conversion) and that the nearest significant population is about 15 miles away.