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BEIJING - A powerful earthquake struck Monday close to densely populated areas of southwestern China, flattening schools and homes and killing more than 100 people, according to early estimates.
The quake, with a magnitude of 7.8 on the Richter scale, was felt in cities across a swathe of Southeast Asia including the Thai capital Bangkok, more than 1,800 kilometres (1,200 miles) from the epicentre in Sichuan province.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called it a "major disaster" and urged calm.
China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported that up to 900 students were feared buried when a high school collapsed in Dujiangyan, which has a population of some 600,000.
At least four children were confirmed dead there, Xinhua said, and quoted a local official saying "rows of houses" had also been demolished.
Another four children died and more than 100 were injured when two primary schools crumbled in the sprawling metropolis of Chongqing.
The civil affairs ministry, cited by Xinhua, said that as at 6:00 pm (1000 GMT), nearly four hours after the quake struck, 107 people had been confirmed dead and 34 injured in Sichuan and neighbouring Gansu and Yunnan provinces.
"Facing disaster, the most important thing is calm, confidence, courage and strong leadership," Wen told China's CCTV television on a flight to the heart of the quake-hit zone.
"We will definitely overcome this major disaster".
President Hu Jintao urged an "all-out" effort to rescue victims. Military troops were ordered to help with the disaster relief work.
The international airport at Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, was closed and air travel disrupted elsewhere.
An Olympic spokesman said none of the 31 venues for the Beijing Olympics in the capital and six other host cities had been damaged.
"They are earthquake-proof to a high degree and no damage was done," said Sun Weide, deputy director of the Olympic media and communications office.
The quake struck 93 kilometres from Chengdu, a city of more than 12 million people, and some 260 kilometres from Chongqing and its 30 million.
The State Seismological Bureau located its epicentre in Wenchuan County, a mountainous region home to the Wolong Nature Reserve, China's leading research and breeding base for endangered giant pandas.
Xinhua quoted an official saying the landmark Three Gorges Dam in Sichuan province had not been affected.
However, buildings shook in Beijing and Shanghai, residents reported, with many people evacuating tower blocks and rushing onto the street. There were no immediate reports of damage there.
Tremors were also felt in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Hanoi and Taipei, residents there said.
Both the Chinese seismological bureau and the US Geological Survey, which use different scales, measured it at 7.8.
The quake struck shortly before 2.30 pm (0630 GMT), according to the USGS, at a depth of just 10 kilometres.
A series of aftershocks continued to rock the region, including one of 5.8 felt near Chengdu, according to the USGS.
The phone network there and elsewhere around the country appeared to suffer a meltdown as people tried to find out what happened.
Two residents near downtown Chengdu whom AFP contacted by phone said they felt a violent shaking that threw glassware to the floor and toppled street lights.
The quake was felt in the Taiwanese capital Taipei, where buildings swayed for half a minute, and in the southern Chinese territory of Hong Kong.
In Hanoi, residents said some high buildings shook for around five minutes but there were no reports of damage.
One of the biggest quakes ever recorded was in China in 1976, which killed 242,000 people.
That quake, centred in the northern city of Tangshan, lasted for 15 seconds and flattened 90 percent of buildings. The death toll, out of a population of one million, made it one of the world's deadliest in the 20th century.
In 1920 and again in 1927, separate quakes in northwestern China each left some 200,000 dead. - AFP/ir
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