At least 118 dead in northwest China earthquake

Rescuers in remote villages of northwest China dug through the rubble of collapsed homes on Tuesday after China’s deadliest earthquake in years killed at least 118 people and injured hundreds more.

Officials in impoverished Gansu province said the shallow tremor just before midnight had caused the deaths of at least 105 and injured almost 400 as of Tuesday morning.

A further 13 died, 182 were injured and 20 were missing in the city of Haidong in neighbouring Qinghai province, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

The quake brought homes crashing down and caused other significant damage, sending people running into the street for safety, state news agency Xinhua said.

“I was almost scared to death. Look at how my hands and legs are shaking,” said a woman of about 30 in a video posted to a social media account associated with the state-run People’s Daily newspaper.

“As soon as I ran out of the house, the earth on the mountain gave way, thudding on the roof,” she said as she sat swaddled in a blanket outside, cradling a baby.

Footage from CCTV showed family possessions visible among strewn masonry from a house that caved in during the quake.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar said he was deeply saddened at the loss of lives and extended sympathies to the victims.

The quake was China’s deadliest since at least 2014, when more than 600 people died in southwestern Yunnan province.

China’s western hinterland carries the scars of frequent seismic activity, and a huge quake in Sichuan province in 2008 left more than 87,000 people dead or missing, including 5,335 schoolchildren.

The US Geological Survey said Monday night’s magnitude-5.9 quake struck at a shallow depth at 11:59 pm local time (1559 GMT) with an epicentre around 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Gansu’s provincial capital, Lanzhou.

China’s state news agency Xinhua reported the magnitude as 6.2 and said the shaking was felt as far away as the major city of Xi’an, about 570 kilometres (350 miles) away.

Dozens of smaller aftershocks followed, and officials warned that tremors with a magnitude of more than 5.0 were possible in the next few days. A quake measured at magnitude 5.2 by USGS was detected further northwest in the Xinjiang region on Tuesday morning.

Freezing temperatures
Chinese President Xi Jinping called for “all-out efforts” as search and rescue work got under way early on Tuesday.

Temperatures are below freezing in the high-altitude area, and rescuers should be on guard for secondary disasters, he said, according to CCTV.

Provincial officials said at a press conference on Tuesday morning that nearly 5,000 homes had been damaged by the quake in Gansu.

State media reported that power and water supplies were disrupted in villages around the epicentre but that some electricity had later been restored.

Footage from one of the worst-hit places on CCTV showed residents warming themselves by a fire while emergency services set up tents.

CCTV said more than 1,400 firefighters and rescue personnel had been sent to the disaster zone, while another 1,600 remained “on standby”.

Rescue workers search a house for survivors after an earthquake in Kangdiao village, Dahejia, Jishishan County, in northwest China’s Gansu province on December 19, 2023. — AFP
The broadcaster added that supplies including drinking water, blankets, stoves and instant noodles were also being sent to the affected area.

Footage showed emergency vehicles driving along snow-lined highways towards the scene with their lights flashing.

Rescue workers in overalls were pictured shoulder-to-shoulder in the trucks, while other images showed them lining up in ranks to receive instructions. Other clips showed emergency personnel going through debris by torchlight, unfolding orange stretchers for the casualties.

Hundreds of people have been evacuated in Gansu, officials said.

The earthquake struck at a shallow depth at 11:59 pm local time Monday (1559 GMT), according to the USGS, which revised the magnitude downwards after initially reporting it to be 6.0.

Earthquakes are not uncommon in China. In August, a shallow 5.4-magnitude earthquake struck the eastern part of the country, injuring 23 people and collapsing dozens of buildings.

In September 2022, a 6.6-magnitude quake hit Sichuan province leaving almost 100 dead.

And in 2010, a 6.9-magnitude quake in Qinghai left 3,000 people dead or missing.

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