Tue 19 December 2023:
At least 118 people have been killed and hundreds injured after an earthquake hit northwestern China in a remote and mountainous region while many were asleep.
While the authorities quickly mobilised several emergency responses, their work was complicated as the earthquake wrecked roads and infrastructure, triggered landslides, and half buried a village in silt. The rescue work has also proved challenging in subzero temperatures, with most of China grappling with below-freezing conditions after a powerful cold wave swept across the country.
Photo: China daily via Reuters.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday called for “all-out efforts” in the search and relief operations. Nearly 1,500 firefighters were deployed with another 1,500 on standby, according to state media. More than 300 officers and soldiers were also mobilised for disaster relief.
The earthquake had a magnitude of 6.2, according to state news agency Xinhua. It struck at 23:59 pm (15:59 GMT) on Monday in Gansu province near the border with Qinghai, causing significant damage, state media reported on Tuesday.
The tremor was felt as far away as Xi’an in northern Shaanxi province, about 570km (350 miles) from the epicentre.
Gansu provincial authorities told a press conference that as of 7:50am (23:50 GMT on Monday), 105 people had been confirmed dead, and 397 injured. More than 4,700 houses had been damaged, they added. Power and water supplies were disrupted in some villages, Xinhua said.
Photo: China daily via Reuters.
A further 13 people died, 182 were injured and 20 were missing in the city of Haidong in neighbouring Qinghai province, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
State television footage showed emergency vehicles driving along snow-lined highways, and rescue workers pictured shoulder to shoulder in the trucks.
Supplies including drinking water, blankets, stoves and instant noodles were also being sent to the affected area.
People living close to the epicentre rushed out onto the street as they felt the earthquake. Some buildings collapsed.
“I live on the 16th floor and felt the tremors so strongly,” a man named Qin was quoted as saying in the state-run Global Times. “The moment of the earthquake was feeling like being tossed up after surging waves … I woke my family up and we rushed down all 16 floors in one breath.
Photo: China daily via Reuters.
Qin added that it was minus 12 degrees Celsius (10.4 Fahrenheit), and that while some of his neighbours had put on down jackets or wrapped themselves in blankets others were bare-chested.
The United States Geological Survey reported the quake was a magnitude 5.9, while the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) said it was a magnitude 6.1.
The earthquake struck Gansu’s Jishishan county at a depth of 10km (6 miles). Gansu has a population of about 26 million people and includes part of the Gobi Desert.
Photo: Feature China via AP.
China allocates £27m to rebuilding after earthquake
China’s state planner has allocated 250 million yuan (£27m) to the Gansu and Qinghai provinces for reconstruction work after the earthquake, it said in a statement.
The deadly quake caused damage to buildings, water and electricity lines as well as transportation and communications infrastructure.
Photo: Feature China via AP.
Satellites monitoring earthquake area
Four satellites have been deployed to monitor the earthquake area, it’s understood.
High-resolution images from the scene will provide information about landslides, barrier lakes and building collapses.
So far, mapping has been completed for the two-metre high-resolution imaging data of the disaster area, our producer in Beijing has learned.
Thousands of students and teachers evacuated
Nearly 14,700 students and teachers from all 15 boarding schools in Jishishan county in Gansu have been evacuated, Chinese state media is reporting.
No injuries or deaths have been reported at the schools, the reports say.
The quake struck overnight in Jishishan about five kilometres (three miles) from the provincial boundary with the Qinghai province.
Communications services have been partly recovered in the area and the National Energy Administration says more than 80% of power outages have been restored.
Earthquakes are common in western provinces such as Gansu, which lie on the eastern boundary of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, a tectonically active area.
In September 2022, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake hit Sichuan province, killing almost 100 people.
A magnitude 7.9 earthquake in Sichuan in 2008 left more than 87,000 people dead or missing, including 5,335 children who were in school at the time it happened.
At least 242,000 people were killed in 1976 after an earthquake struck Tangshan in the worst natural disaster in Chinese history.
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