Beijing signs off with another awesome display, next stop London 2012

Beijing packed another pyrotechnic punch at the Bird’s Nest tonight for the closing ceremony of the 29th Olympiad. Drawing on China’s rich tradition of acrobatics, filmmaker Zhang Yimou playfully drew on the theme of remembering to sign off China’s long fortnight under the most high-voltage spotlight.

China ended the Games with 51 gold medals, signaling the strongest domination of sport by a country since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The sport was intriguingly good at these Olympics, and barring any distressing news that may come by way of doping Beijing will be a marker for students of athletic excellence.

But for China, these Games have been as much about the staging of them as for the medal haul. China was keen to host them, and seven years ago made pledges to get them and asserted its ambitions for rapid development in preparing for them.

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Strong china quake felt as far as Thailand

An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 struck China's Sichuan province on Monday, less than 100 km (60 miles) from the provincial capital of Chengdu, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its website.

The quake was felt across much of China and as far west as Bangkok, Thailand's capital, some 3,300 km (2050 miles) away, where office buildings swayed for several minutes.

It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties or damage from the tremor.

"We felt continuous shaking for about two or three minutes. All the people in our office are rushing downstairs. We're still feeling slight tremblings," said an office worker in Chengdu.

In Beijing's financial district, many workers poured from their buildings but there were no visible signs of damage. The subway system was unaffected.

"People were shouting 'get out, get out', so we all ran out of our dorm," said a student surnamed Zhang at a university in nearby Chongqing.

USGS said on its website (http://earthquake.usgs.gov) that the quake struck at 2:28 a.m. EDT (0628 GMT) at a depth of 29 kms (18 miles). The agency originally put the strength of the quake at 7.8.

Japan's meteorological agency said no warnings for a tsunami has been issued.

Sources said there was no immediate impact to the Three Gorges Dam project, the weight of whose massive reservoir, hundreds of kms from Chengdu, experts have said could increase the risk of tremors.

A spokesman for the China Earthquake Administration said it was still checking the epicenter and scale of the tremor.