50 confirmed dead out of 900 buried students

Rescuers have recovered at least 50 bodies from the debris of a high school building that collapsed and buried almost 900 students in Monday's earthquake in southwest China.

The tragedy occurred at Juyuan Middle School in Juyuan Township of Dujiangyan City, Sichuan Province, about 100 kilometers from the epicenter in Wenchuan County.

An unknown number of students were also reported buried after buildings collapsed at five other schools in the province's Deyang City, where a quake measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale occurred at 4:21 p,m. on Monday, according to the Sichuan provincial seismological bureau.

Local government officials are assessing the situation and rescuers are searching for the trapped students.

Deyang is about 58 kilometers from the provincial capital of Chengdu. Communications and the electricity supply in the quake-affected areas were cut after the quake.

Sichuan provincial education authorities have required schools and kindergartens in the quake-hit areas to close from Tuesday till further notice.

Xinhua reporters saw a three-story school building had partially collapsed at the Juyuan Middle School in Dujiangyan City. Some buried teenagers were struggling to free themselves from the ruins while others were calling for help. Eight excavators were working at the site.

Devastated parents watched as five cranes worked at the site and an ambulance waited.

A tearful mother said her son, 9th-grader Zhang Chengwei, was buried in the ruins.

Two girls said they escaped because they had "run faster than others".

"It was around 2:30 pm, and the building suddenly began to rock back and forth," one of them said.

A villager said the school had 18 classes, all 8th and 9th graders, with about 50 students in each class.

"We ran out of the house when the quake hit," said Gao Shangyuan, a villager who lives close to school and helped with the rescue work.

Gao and other villagers helped dozens of students out of the ruins. "Some had jumped out of the window and a few others ran down the stairs that did not collapse."

The quake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, has killed at least 107 nationwide by 6 p.m., said the Ministry of Civil Affairs. 

Expert warns of aftershocks in southwest China

A senior Chinese seismologist on Monday warned residents in earthquake-hit areas in southwest China that aftershocks could be just as devastating as the main tremor.

"A big earthquake could release most, but not all of the underground energy, and its aftershocks may cause natural disasters," said Zhang Guomin, a research fellow with the China Seismological Bureau.

Generally speaking, aftershocks were weaker than the main earthquake, but as many buildings were already damaged, the aftershocks could pull them down, he said.

With its epicenter in Wenchuan County in Sichuan Province, the earthquake occurred at 2:28 p.m. Monday. Measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, it was the first in the province above 7 since 1976.

"Wenchuan is prone to earthquakes as it is on a major fault line -- the south-north fault line that runs from Yunnan to Ningxia," said Zhang.

The county was also on a small fault line known as Longmen mountain earthquake belt.

Rescue teams and relief workers, including 5,000 soldiers and police forces from the Chengdu Area Military Command of the People's Liberation Army, have been dispatched to quake-affected areas.

Over 100 confirmed dead after Sichuan earthquake

Authorities in southwest China's Sichuan Province said at least 55 people died and 600 people were injured in the province after a powerful earthquake jolted the area on Monday.

In Chengdu, the provincial capital, at least 45 died and more than 600 people were injured, said an official with the Sichuan Provincial Seismological Bureau, citing latest statistics. Fifty-eight of them are critically injured, he added.

Four were found dead in the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, and another five died in the Zhongjiang County, southwest of Wenchuan, the epicenter of the quake, he said.

The casualties added to one death from a water tower collapse in Santai County, in the city of Mianyang.

The strong earthquake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, shook the southwestern part of China at 2:28 p.m. Monday, according to the State Seismological Bureau (SSB).

China's Ministry of Civil Affairs said at least 107 and 34 were injured in provinces and municipality of Sichuan, Gansu, Chongqing and Yunnan by 6:00 p.m. Monday. It is not yet confirmed whether the latest casualties in Sichuan had been included in the national tally.

Authorities said the casualties are expected to continue to rise as more bodies dug out from fallen buildings.