A massive earthquake hit Chengdu, a city in the Sichuan province of China, on Sunday, killing nearly 9,000 people.
The earthquake, which reached 7.8 on the Richter scale, is the largest earthquake in China in nearly three decades.
There are 8,533 people confirmed dead in the Sichuan province alone, but people fear that the death toll will rise once the debris is removed and the search for bodies ensues.
The earthquake was felt strongly in Beijing and Shanghai, but the tremors extended to Hong Kong, Vietnam and the Thai capital Bangkok, which is 1,200 miles from Chengdu, the epicenter of the quake.
3,000 to 5,000 people were estimated to have died in one district of Sichuan, Beichuan County, where 80 percent of buildings had collapsed. Two schools were completely demolished in Chongqing, the major city in the neighboring province of Chongqing.
It was reported that up to 900 students were buried under a collapsed high school in Dujiangyan, northwest of Chengdu.
The quake's epicenter was about 58 miles from Chengdu, a city of more than 12 million people, and 162 miles from Chongqing, which has 30 million inhabitants.
The map of China and the map of Sichuan province are located in the photo gallery.
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