China "safe" despite quake, say Olympics officials

By Nick Mulvenney

BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing Olympic officials on Tuesday assured foreigners planning to visit China for this August's Games that the country is safe despite an earthquake that killed some 10,000 people and possibly many more.

The Chinese capital is expected to welcome more than half a million foreign visitors for the Aug. 8-24 Games and Zhang Jian of the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) said they should not be concerned about natural disasters.

"What I want to say to foreign visitors is that the Olympic Games are safe, Beijing is safe, China is safe," Zhang, director of the project management department, told reporters on Tuesday.

Li Zhanjun, director of the BOCOG media centre, said that earthquakes had been taken into account when building the 31 venues in Beijing and the manpower required for the clean-up operation in Sichuan would not impact on the Games' security.

"When constructing any building in Beijing, you have to ensure it is able to resist earthquakes of up to eight on the Richter scale so the Olympic venues will not be in danger from earthquakes," he said.

The magnitude of Monday's earthquake in the southwestern province of Sichuan was 7.9.

"The epicentre is near Chengdu," he added. "The police and army from Beijing are not being used, so it won't affect Olympic security at all."

The relay of the Beijing Olympic flame, already disrupted by anti-Chinese protests over Tibet on its journey around the world, is scheduled to visit Sichuan province on June 15-18.