The quake, estimated to have had a magnitude of 7.9, ravaged a mountainous region outside Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, destroying 80 percent of structures in some of the towns and small cities near its epicenter. Its tremors were felt as far away as Vietnam and set off another, smaller quake in the outskirts of Beijing, 900 miles away.
With a death toll in the tens of thousands, and infrastructure devastated in the affected areas, this is a major catastrophe.
Early estimates show 10,000 dead and counting.
