Family members continue search for survivors in Haiti. Days after a deadly school collapse in Haiti, the search for survivors continues. Family members of the students and teachers believed to be still under rubble brought shovels and hammers to the site Sunday to dig through the ruin, reports CNN. However, because of safety concerns surrounding the possibility of falling concrete, police had to intervene and keep them away. The school, College La Promesse Evangelique in Petionville, collapsed Friday morning during a school celebration reportedly killing at least 84 people and injuring 150. When the school collapsed, students (from 10 to 20 years old) were either playing outside or inside the building. It isn’t known exactly how many people remain trapped in the debris. At the time the three-story building collapsed, there were 700 people on school grounds, according to a Haitian official. However, a United Nations spokesman believes there were only 250 people inside the school when it collapsed, which would drop the number of people missing. Rescue workers were able to pull out several children alive from the wreckage on Saturday but also found the bodies of 20 students and their teachers. No one has been found alive since then. Some are still keeping hope alive, though. “Throughout history, there’re been people found … 48, 72 hours later – still alive, in good shape,” Michael Istvan, from the U.S. Agency for International Development (a group who is in Haiti helping with rescue efforts) told CNN. As worried parents, holding pictures of their children watched anxiously, rescue crews (from the U.S. and France) continue their effort, sending down cameras into the rubble to look for signs of life and using cranes to lift concrete. Haitian authorities questioned the school’s owner, Fortin Augustin, Sunday, according to Haiti’s Civil Protection Bureau. Augustin has not been charged with a crime. Haiti’s president, Rene Preval, called the building’s structure “really weak” and ordered that construction guidelines be reviewed.

Strong earthquake hits China. A powerful earthquake hit northwest China Monday, reports The Associated Press. The 6.5-magnitude quake hit a remote area in the nation’s Qinghai province, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Its epicenter was 35 miles east of the Da Qaidam district, and tremors from the quake were felt in Golmud (100 miles from the quake’s epicenter), which has a population of 270,000, is the second largest city in the province. A local official said authorities sent 180 people to investigate damage from the quake, but there have been no deaths yet reported.  The western part of the nation is no stranger to earthquakes; just in May, a 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit the region (the Sichuan province), killing 70,000 people and displacing 5 million.

TAGS: China, collapse, earthquake, haiti, school

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