China: 2008 quake killed 5,335 students

A magnitude-7.9 earthquake that struck southwestern China last year killed 5,335 students and left an additional 546 children disabled, state media reported. The first official tally of students killed in the Sichuan province quake was released Thursday by Tu Wentao, the head of the province’s education department, the Xinhua news agency said. As of September, official figures put the death toll at 69,227, with more than 17,923 people missing

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Scientist: My quake prediction was ignored

A researcher says he predicted Monday’s devastating earthquake that killed dozens of people and left tens of thousands homeless in central Italy, but authorities dismissed him as a scaremonger. Gioacchino Giuliani, an employee at a physics institute at Gran Sasso, near the badly-hit city of L’Aquila, has demanded an official apology for what he says was an unforgivable failure to act on his predictions. “There are people who must apologize to me, and they must have the weight of what occurred on their conscience,” Giuliani said after the quake hit, according to local news site Ilcapoluogo.com.

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