Nearly 9,000 people were killed and thousands injured in southwest China's Sichuan province after it was rocked by the deadliest quake in recent decades, on Monday.
The quake measuring 7.8 on the Richter Scale rocked Sichuan province where Beichuan county bore the brunt with the number of people dead estimated at 5,000 and injured up to 10,000.
However, no Indians were affected by the devastating earthquake, Indian embassy sources said.
Officials said 80 per cent of the buildings were flattened in Beichuan, northwest of the provincial capital of Chengdu, 146 km from Wenchuan County, the epicentre of the killer quake, the worst to strike China since Tangshan quake in 1976 that claimed 242,000 lives.
Quoting the Sichuan local government, Xinhua on Monday night put the toll at 8,700 amidst fears that the toll could soar.
In one of the grim tragedies, almost 900 students in the Juyuan Middle School in Dujiangyan City, about 100 km from Wenchuan, were feared to be buried after a building collapsed.
Rescuers recovered at least 50 bodies as devastated parents watched.
Image: A rescuer searches the rubble of a collapsed building in Dujiangyan in Sichuan province.
Reportage: PTI | Photographs: AFP/AFP/Getty Images
Advertisement
