Chapter3AnalyzingNewsbetweenNewspapers.docVIP

Reading A Death Toll in China Quake Rises to 617 Wu Hong/Xinhua, via Associated Press The rubble near a destroyed building after an earthquake at Jiegu Town in Yushu county, a Tibetan autonomous prefecture in western Qinghai Province of northwest China on Wednesday. By ANDREW JACOBS Published: April 14, 2010 (The New York Times) [1]BEIJING — The death toll from the powerful earthquake that struck western China Wednesday rose to at least 617 people on Thursday, with 10,000 more injured as many remained buried under debris, Chinese state media reported. Multimedia Map [2]The quake, which struck at 7:49 a.m. in Qinghai Province, bordering Tibet, had a magnitude of 7.1, according to China’s earthquake agency. At least 18 aftershocks measuring more than 6.0 followed throughout the day, government officials said, according to Xinhua. [3]China’s earthquake agency said the quake centered on Yushu County, a remote and mountainous area sparsely populated by farmers and herdsmen, most of them ethnic Tibetans. The region, pocked with copper, tin and coal mines, is also rich in natural gas. [4]As with the devastating earthquake two years ago that killed 87,000 in neighboring Sichuan Province, many buildings collapsed, including schools. But with Qinghai’s far smaller and less dense population, the toll is likely to remain far lower. [5]A seismologist, Gu Guohua, said in an interview with the national broadcaster CCTV that 90 percent of the homes in the county seat, Jeigu, had collapsed. The houses, he said, were of “quite poor quality,” with many constructed of wood, mud and brick. Rescue workers pulled a body from a collapsed building in Yushu County. Chinese officials said the quake had a 7.1 magnitude. [6]The dead included at least 56 students and 5 teachers who were crushed in the rubble of collapsing schools or dormitories, the English-language government newspaper China Daily reported. Of that number, 22 students — 20 of them g