Almost 10 thousand people became victims of the earthquake with magnitude 7.8 points which took place in the Chinese province Sichuan. On the specified data, as a result of earthquake 9219 people died in a southwest of China. That is an official data on victims in a province Sichuan given by the Ministry of Civil Administration of People's Republic of China. This figure, probably, will continue to grow as an access to some areas is complicated and situation there remains to be not clear. Prime-minister of the State Council of People's Republic of China Wen Jiabao supervises salvage operations on place.
Situation is complicated with residual tremors. During the last hours more than a thousand of them were fixed in the province Sichuan. Scales of destructions are not determined up to the end in view of the fact that after impact of nature telecommunication is paralyzed in many cities till now. It is known that about 80% of buildings are destroyed in the area of epicentre of tremors. Apartment houses and schools, hospitals and factories are destroyed, hundreds people whose destiny is not known till now are under their fragments.
Not less than 10 thousand people are under blockages only in one district Mjanchzhu of the Chinese province Sichuan suffered from earthquake. More than 1 thousand children and teachers found themselves under the fragments of a building of school in district Bejchuan. There is no data about detection of foreign citizens among victims in a zone of disaster, however, according to some information, more than 2 thousand tourists were in a zone of disaster. Communication with them has been lost.
About 50 thousand Chinese military men are involved in liquidation of consequences of accident. The decision about parachute landing of air - landing armies in Venchuan for organization of saving operation is accepted.
It's the strongest earthquake in China for last 30 years. Similar earthquake took place in 1976. Then nature carried away lives of more than 240 thousand people.
It's difficult to judge about situation on place not only because communications are destroyed and electricity does not work. Recently people have got used to judge about the state of affairs not only from mass-media but also from blogs, where simple people share own impressions and give estimations. Unfortunately, absence of access to blog sphere inside of the country is a specific feature of the "Chinese" Internet. Therefore we see neither hundreds of pictures made by amateur chambers and mobile phones, nor firsthand testimonies.
Unfortunately, rigid censor policy has such unpleasant side as non-availability to have necessary information "from below" both on the part of society and authority. Concrete example: only today in the morning, after 11 hours after earthquake the first contact with the district Venchuan where there was an epicentre of tremors was established. The head of the party organization of the district managed to get in touch with rescuers by satellite phone and informed that the area needed emergency help and medicines for organization of saving operation.
