More than 8,700 dead in China earthquake

A powerful earthquake toppled buildings, schools and a chemical plant in China today, killing more than 8,700 people and trapping untold numbers in mounds of concrete, steel and earth.

Xinhua news agency said that a high school collapsed in Juyuan town, south of the epicentre of the earthquake which swept central China, burying as many as 900 students and killing at least 50.