wow factor

like Hiroshima after the bomb

McDonell and cameraman Rob Hill walked for 12 hours to get to the town of Ying Xiu, which was until last week an industrial town with several factories, and a population McDonell estimated would have been around 11,000.

"The whole place has been flattened. There's not one building left standing," he told ABC Radio's The World Today program.

"They've accounted for about 2,400 people, so presumably everybody else has died - including those attending a middle school and a primary school that were full at the time.

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Associated: Earthquake in Sichuan Province