China quake death toll rises above 8,700

Stranded passengers sleep after the most destructive earthquake China has experienced.

CHENGDU, China – A powerful earthquake toppled buildings, schools and chemical plants Monday in central China, killing more than 8,700 people and trapping untold numbers in mounds of concrete, steel and earth in the country’s worst quake in three deca

The 7.9-magnitude quake devastated a region of small cities and towns set amid steep hills north of Sichuan’s provincial capital of Chengdu. Striking in midafternoon, it emptied office buildings across the country in Beijing and could be felt as far away as Vietnam.

Snippets from state media and photos posted on the Internet underscored the immense scale of the devastation. In the town of Juyuan, south of the epicenter, a three-story high school collapsed, burying as many as 900 students and killing at least 50, the official Xinhua news agency said. Photos showed people using cranes, mechanical hoists and their hands to remove slabs of concrete and steel.

Buried teenagers struggled to break free from the rubble, “while others were crying out for help,” Xinhua said. Families waited in the rain near the wreckage as rescuers wrote the names of the dead on a blackboard, Xinhua said.