Earthquake in China Leaves Thousands Dead, Some Buried (VIDEO)

China's state news agency estimates that 7,651 people have died from injuries suffered in the earthquake.

Photo of the devastation in China following today's 7.8 magnitude earthquake. Photo courtesy: Xinhua news agency

(SALEM, Ore.) - As many as 5,000 people were killed in China today during a major earthquake. The disaster that jolted southwestern China on Monday measured a magnitude of 7.8.

In China's Sichuan province alone, officials report an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 victims reported the Xinhua news agency said. The military was also dispatched to quake-hit areas.

The quake was the biggest in China since 1976, when the country's northeast Tangshan suffered an earthquake that killed more than 240,000 people.

According to media sources, the quake happened at 2:28 PM Eastern time and it was centered about 55 miles west-northwest of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, the U.S. Geological Survey's Website reported.

China's state news agency estimates that 7,651 people have died from injuries suffered in the earthquake. It was felt as far away as Beijing, which is 960 miles to northeast of the epicenter, and also in Bangkok, Thailand, and Hanoi, Vietnam.

China's news agency Xinhua, reports that "Aftershocks were felt in Chengdu within hours after the earthquake. Cracks were seen in the walls of some buildings. The local radio station in Chengdu quoted witnesses as saying that some houses collapsed in Dujiangyan. A water main broke beneath a viaduct near Chengdu's southern railway station, flooding downtown Changshou Road."

The agency also said that as of early Monday evening in China, the cell phone network remained outof operation in Chengdu and Chongqing Municipality.

Possibly the most alarming report is that at least 900 students could have been buried alive when a high school building collapsed.

We are going to include a number of video clips with this report. The first is from YouTube and it is recorded by Chinese students in a classroom in a multi story building. As far as we know this is not the school where 900 students are buried in a collapse:

Video

In this Google Video clip we see a young Chinese woman sitting at what appears to be a cashier's station. The video is seven minutes long the first few are uneventful, but you will see the actual start of the earthquake and the duration of it, which is long:

Here is a report from England with some of the latest developments: