Toll is now 12,000 with an estimated 25,000 trapped. The government is being quicker to respond than to the New Year Snow storm. The high toll was because of the time it struck, mid-afternoon.

The article is so so, but the comments are interesting - China bloggers cook up quake conspiracies I appreciated the kind comment from a person from Taiwan towards the victims.

Popular Mechanics has an article on Quake Detection technologies (still working on them is my take) 3 Quake Tech Frontiers to Save China (and Help the US Next Time).
Quote from the article - prediction remains something of a scientific dead end.

And since I live in Southern California, home of the San Andreas fault and having lived through the Whittier, Northridge, and Sylmar Quakes. And the big one is expected at any time, quake detection would be nice! The good news is after every quake the retrofitting of freeways and such gets better and better. In the Sylmar quake, the I5 collapsed. Same in Northridge and in downtown LA the 10 freeway (a huge mess for traffic until it was fixed). San Francisco Loma Prieta Earthquake collapsed a double decker freeway. My Uncle was in a convention center and all the lights went out, not a pleasant experience.

Labels: china's future