M 7.8 Earthquake in Sichuan, China

A large earthquake struck the heart of western China Monday afternoon local time near the city of Chengdu, killing thousands of people. The US Geological Survey's master page for this event has a page generated by the new population-centered risk software PAGER, showing that more than 15 million people were exposed to damaging levels of ground shaking. It was a shallow thrust event related to the spreading of the Tibetan Plateau against the Chinese craton. Shaking was felt very widely, and news continues to filter out from the region.