More than 8,500 people died when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck southwestern China on Monday, trapping adults and children under the rubble of collapsed schools and office buildings, and causing ammonia spills at a chemical plant, the state news agency said. Xinhua, citing government officials, said 8,533 people died in the Sichuan province alone, while another 10,000 could be injured. In one county of Sichuan - Beichuan - an estimated 80 per cent of buildings were reduced to rubble. The earthquake, felt as far away as Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam, struck about 100 kilometres northwest of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its website. It hit at 2:28 p.m. local time, when schools were full and office buildings were packed. People were also killed in the provinces of Gansu and Yunnan, and the municipality of Chongquing. No Canadian casualties or injuries have been reported, a Foreign Affairs spokesman...