Scientists worked out that the earth moved up to along the Longmen Shan Fault. This fault is about long and deep. The earthquake made the ground on the surface move more than . Japanese seismologist, Yuji Yagi, said that the earthquake took place in two parts. The fault tore in two sections, the first one moving about . In the second part of the quake the fault moved another .
The earthquake lasted about two minutes. It was powerful because it did not happen very deep under the ground. Many people were killed because there were so many people living above the epicenter. Teruyuki Kato, a seismologist at the University of Tokyo, said that the shock waves traveled a long way. The waves did not lose their power because of the hardness of the ground in central China.
A list of places that felt the earthquake::
The quake happened because a part of the earth's surface, called the "Indian plate", is slowly moving north. It is moving about every year. It crashes into the "Eurasian plate". This has pushed up the ground and made the Himalaya mountains. Some of the earth's crust gets pushed into Sichuan and southern China. This pushing has caused many earthquakes in China. The epicentre was in the mountains on the eastern edge of the Qing-Tibet Plateau. This is on the north west edge of the Sichuan Basin. The earthquake was caused by movement on a north east fault. This is the Longmen Shan fault, that runs along the edge of the basin.
Office buildings in Shanghai, including the Jin Mao Tower and the Hong Kong New World Tower, were evacuated (all the people were made to leave). Emergency services in Chengdu could not answer all the phone calls . Workers at a Ford plant in Sichuan were evacuated for about 10 minutes. The Chengdu airport was shut down. One SilkAir flight was sent to land in nearby Kunming instead. Cathay Pacific flights from Hong Kong to London were stopped. Chengdu airport reopened as the airport was used for relief operations.
Reporters in Chengdu said they saw cracks in walls of some buildings. In Beijing many office buildings were evacuated. This included the building with the media offices for the 2008 Summer Olympics. None of the Olympic venues were damaged. A train with 13 petrol tanks came of the railway tracks in Huixian County, Gansu Province, and caught on fire. The earthquake had twisted the rails.
All of the highways into Wenchuan, and others across Sichuan province, were damaged. This slowed down arrival of the rescue troops. In Beichuan county, 80% of the buildings collapsed. In Shifang, 2 chemical factories were damaged and leaked 80 tons of liquid ammonia. The Dujiangyan Irrigation System, a UNESCO World Heritage Site was damaged. This is an ancient water system which is still in use. The famous Fish Mouth was cracked.
Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange stopped trading in companies based in south west China. The price of copper rose because production stopped. Oil prices dropped because people thought China would not need as much oil.
Half of the wireless communications were lost in the Sichuan province. China Mobile had lost more than 2,300 base stations due to lack of power and too many phone calls. China Unicom's service in Wenchuan and nearby areas were cut off, with more than 700 phone towers out of action.
Two pandas at a Giant Panda reserve were injured. Two others went missing after the quake.
The Zipingpu hydro power station, east of the epicenter, was destroyed. The dam wall cracked, and the buildings collapsed. The Tulong dam was in danger of bursting. About 2,000 troops were sent to Zipingpu, to try and release the pressure through spillway. In total, 391 dams, were damaged by the quake.
By May 18, 2008, 21 new lakes had formed in the Sichuan. This was because the earthquake blocked rivers. Villages had to be evacuated because of the flooding.
The Chinese government said the quake killed 69,181 people, including 68,636 in Sichuan province. There are 18,498 people listed as missing; 374,171 people were injured. This includes 158 workers who were killed in landslides as they tried to fix roads.
One rescue team found only 2,300 people still alive in Yingxiu. Before the quake there had been about 9,000 people there. In Beichuan county, 3,000 to 5,000 people were killed, 10,000 injured and 80% of the buildings were destroyed. Eight schools fell down in Dujiangyan.
A 56-year-old Taiwanese tourist was killed in Dujiangyan. He was trying to rescue 11 tourists trapped on the Lingyanshan Ropeway. Because of the earthquake, they had been trapped inside the cable cars.
Thousands of school children died because of badly built schools.
least 1,700 people. At least 7,000 school buildings collapsed. Another 700 students were buried in a school in Hanwang. At least 600 students and staff died at Juyuan Elementary School. Up to 1,300 children and teachers died at Beichuan Middle School.
Because of China's one-child policy, many families lost their only child. Officials in Sichuan province have removed the limit of one child for families whose only child was killed or badly injured. So-called "illegal children" under 18 years of age may be made a legal replacement for their dead brother or sister. This may be too late for some, as many of the parents are too old or unable to have children again.
On May 29, 2008, officials began looking at the ruins of thousands of schools that collapsed. They were searching for clues about why they fell down. Thousands of parents have said the government and builders did not build schools properly. Many other nearby buildings were not damaged. Parents of children killed in the schools say they have yet to receive any reports. Local officials told them not to protest but the parents demonstrated and demanded an investigation. The government censors have stopped stories of badly built schools from being published in the media. There has been an incident where police drove away the protestors.
Liu Shaokun (刘绍坤), a Sichuan school teacher, was arrested on June 25, 2008. He had been spreading "rumors and destroying social order" about the Sichuan Earthquake. Liu had gone to the Shifang (什邡) area, taken photos of collapsed school buildings, and put them online. He had also said he was angry at “the shoddy tofu buildings” in a media interview. He has been ordered to serve one year of re-education through labor (劳动教养) (RTL). Because of complaints from the other countries, Liu has been released to serve his RTL sentence outside of the labor camp.
Safety checks are to be carried out at schools across China. The National Development and Reform Commission are making new laws to improve building standards for primary and middle schools in rural areas.
Insurance companies have put their losses at US$1 billion from the earthquake. The total cost of damage could be more than US$20 billion. Chengdu, a city of 4.5 million people, had a value of about US$115 billion. Only a small part was insured.
The damage to buildings in the earthquake was because of Chinese building designs. China did not have earthquake building rules until after the big Tangshan earthquake in 1976. Older buildings, built before 1976, were not designed to stay up in an earthquake. News reports showed that the poorer, rural villages were hardest hit.
Chinese Communist Party's general secretary Hu Jintao said that help and assistance would be quick. Premier Wen Jiabao, immediately flew to the earthquake area to plan the rescue work.
The China's Health Ministry sent 10 emergency medical teams. The Chengdu Military Area Command sent 50,000 troops and police to help in Wenchuan County. A relief team of 184 people left Beijing:
Because of the mountains, the soldiers found it very difficult to get help to the rural areas.