Emergency officials were evacuating more than 400,000 people yesterday after an earthquake hit southwest China, killing one person, injuring hundreds and flattening more than 18,000 homes.
A government relief official in Yao’an county, a mountainous area of picturesque Yunnan Province, said that one person had died and 328 had been injured.
The US Geological Survey said the moderate 5.7 magnitude quake struck at 7:19pm on Thursday at a shallow depth of 10km in Yunnan Province.
“I was harvesting tobacco leaves ... when the quake hit. I felt dizzy and saw villagers falling over. Many houses collapsed,” Dong Zhaofu, a farmer in Yao’an county, told Xinhua news agency.
A 50-year-old woman was buried in the debris of collapsed houses and died later in hospital from serious blood loss, Xinhua said, citing local officials.
The quake was centered on a relatively sparsely populated area 98km east-northeast of the city of Dali.
Eight aftershocks followed, driving residents outdoors into the warm night for fear of greater damage, Xinhua said.
More than 18,000 houses collapsed and more than 75,000 others were damaged in six counties of Yunnan, with 30 people suffering serious injuries, it said.
More than 1,000 soldiers and police officers, including about 300 from neighboring Sichuan Province, were helping residents to safety, Xinhua said.
The report said China’s civil affairs ministry had ordered the immediate delivery of 5,000 tents and other relief materials. The provincial civil affairs department has already allocated 4,000 tents, 3,000 quilts and other relief materials to Yao’an.
Yunnan Governor Qin Guangrong ordered 20 million yuan (US$2.9 million) be allocated for disaster relief, the agency said. However, emergency officials estimated damage could cost the local economy 2.5 billion yuan, it reported.
Last year in Sichuan, nearly 87,000 people were left dead or missing when a massive 8.0 magnitude earthquake shook the province in China’s mountainous southwest.
North Korea tested nuclear-capable rocket launchers, state media reported yesterday, a day after Seoul detected the launch of about 10 ballistic missiles. The test comes after South Korean and US forces launched their springtime military drills, due to run until Thursday. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Saturday oversaw the testing of the multiple rocket launcher system (MRLS), the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The test involved 12 600mm-caliber ultra-precision multiple rocket launchers and two artillery companies, it said. Kim said the drill gave Pyongyang’s enemies, within the 420km striking range, a sense of “uneasiness” and “a deep understanding
RECOGNITION: Former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry said that Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy serves as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region Taiwan can lead the unification of the Chinese people, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Polish president Lech Walesa said in Taipei yesterday, adding that as the world order is changing, peaceful discussion would find good solutions, and that the use of force and coercion would always fail. Walesa made the remarks during his keynote address at a luncheon of the Yushan Forum in Taipei, titled “Indo-Pacific Partnership Prospects: Taiwan’s Values, Technology and Resilience,” organized by the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Walesa said that he had been at the forefront of a big peaceful revolution and “if
North Korea yesterday fired about 10 ballistic missiles to the sea toward Japan, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, days after Pyongyang warned of “terrible consequences” over ongoing South Korea-US military drills. Pyongyang recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with Seoul, Washington’s security ally, describing its latest peace efforts as a “clumsy, deceptive farce.” Seoul’s military detected “around 10 ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan area in North Korea toward the East Sea [Sea of Japan] at around 1:20pm,” JCS said in a statement, referring to South Korea’s name for the body of water. The missiles
‘UNWAVERING FRIENDSHIP’: A representative of a Japanese group that co-organized a memorial, said he hopes Japanese never forget Taiwan’s kindness President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, urging continued cooperation between Taiwan and Japan on disaster prevention and humanitarian assistance. Lai wrote on social media that Taiwan and Japan have always helped each other in the aftermath of major disasters. The magnitude 9 earthquake struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, triggering a massive tsunami that claimed more than 19,000 lives, according to data from Japanese authorities. Following the disaster, Taiwan donated more than US$240 million in aid, making it one of the largest contributors of financial assistance to Japan. In addition to cash donations and
RSS