Boris, Belgravia, London - We also know that half of one of Grand Canaria is going to fall into the Ocean and start a huge tidal wave thats going to hit NY city. London itself has inadequate flood defences - what are we doing about that?

Glynn, Kingston,

7.9 is a Destructive earthquake, I would expect many buildings to fall. I'd say it's good China has so many schools and is developing so fast. And government structure can't be blamed directly for this, I know in Australia my school would collapse too.
The Chinese government is making great progress

Matty, Harbin, China

Ravi Kant, Navi Mumbai, INDIA

Brother Ravi, Sometimes it is easier to talk than to do. China is such a huge country with such a huge population, do u think it is easy to manage. By comparision, take a small business, is there no cases of mismanagement, errors or wrong decisions? Who is perfect?

Lim, Johor Bahru, Malaysia

Related guys should be punished.but now it is not the time to discuss such matter, so many people need help there .now that the TIMES have times to detract people's attention , why not tell the donate ways to world people and call for help? give your hand , offer your help ....that what we should do

luo, zs,

A trillion dollar economy ,China, is as helpless as one of the poorest nation of world, Myanamar,in the hand of nature.Man is still slave of nature. The people who have created the trillion dollar forex reserves for its country has no safety in its own country.It is shame to humanity.

Ravi Kant, Navi Mumbai, INDIA

We have all seen on TV the images of surviving tall buildings standing next to flattened schools. This is all part of China's massive inequality - schools, like education in general, are massively underfunded and their construction is often done by the very cheapest builders.

John scott, Leeds, UK

i was in tears when i know more than 18k ppl lost their lives.many of them are just children and students.maybe some of them used to have the same dream as mine but it simply ended with the heavy earthquake.we are all livin on the same globe,pls give them a hand,make a donation even 1$. it counts...

Simon, Munich, Germany

I have lived in China for a number of years from US. In the end, the harsh powerful reality of this event is teaching many lessons to the ruling class. They are seeing that there is more power in telling the truth than controlling it, that they can in fact trust the wisdom of chinese people.

bill, chengdu,

I heard that most of the school building are built to withstand a 7.0 earthquake. This earthquake is a 7.9, I think they did not expect such a large earthquake to strike and the mountainous terrain of Sichuan made matters worse. I hope now they will now make all buildings to resist 8.0 earthquakes

Mimi, NY,

Moved to tears upon seeing images of the victims of this tragedy, and impressed by the Chinese rescue efforts, nonetheless, I cannot help thinking how China will hopefully benefit one day from the standards of accountability and open processes that are at least aimed for with democracy.

Helen, Brisbane, Australia