China quake kills 5 children, injures over 100

By Lindsay Beck and Guo Shipeng

BEIJING (Reuters) - Five children were killed and more than 100 injured in a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck China's Sichuan province on Monday, causing buildings to sway and sending residents rushing into the streets.

China's official Xinhua news agency said the deaths occurred when two primary schools toppled in Liangping county of Chongqing, a municipality of 30 million that neighbours Sichuan.

State television showed footage of residents in the Sichuan capital Chengdu crowded in the streets looking relatively unscathed but for one woman shown bleeding from her head.

But an official at the seismological bureau there said phone lines in Sichuan's Wenchuan county, the epicentre of the quake, were completely cut off and there were reports of damage to buildings in neighbouring counties, meaning there could yet be casualties in that area.

Premier Wen Jiabao was flying to Chengdu, a fast-growing metropolis of 10 million people famous for its Giant Panda Breeding Research Base.

The city is around 1,300 miles (2,090 km) southwest of Beijing.

President Hu Jintao had ordered an "all-out effort" to rescue those affected, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The quake was felt as far southwest as Bangkok, Thailand's capital, about 3,300 km (2,050 miles) away, where office buildings swayed for several minutes.