A catastrophic earthquake, measuring 7.9 struck the the mountanous region of Chengdu in the province of Jiangyou on Monday leaving 12 000 people dead and injuring more than 26 000. The numbers are hard to comprehend. Hundreds more are trapped in buildings, schools and factories. 900 teenage students were trapped or killed when the school building they were in collapsed.

Ten students and a professor from British Columbia’s University College of the Fraser Valley were among the millions terrorized in Chengdu when the earthquake struck. Miraculously they all survived when they ran to a nearby field to avoid the debris falling around them.China Quake 1
China Quake 2

The quake was already China’s biggest natural disaster since another earthquake leveled the city of Tangshan in eastern China in 1976, leaving 240,000 people dead.