Villagers were living outdoors and hospitals were jammed after a strong earthquake shook China's southwest, killing up to three people and injuring as many as 600, officials and state media said yesterday.
Some 92 aftershocks have been felt since the magnitude 5.6 quake struck Ludian County in earthquake-prone Yunnan Province on Tuesday evening, county official Shi Zaiqing said by telephone.
PHOTO: REUTERS
State television reported that three people were killed, after originally giving the figure as five in an earlier broadcast.
Shi put the death toll at two and said 422 people were injured when the quake rolled through the area at 6:26pm. He said residents were evacuated but could not give an exact figure or the extent of damage.
The area's three hospitals "all were packed with injured people," he said.
The quake Tuesday caused 5,175 houses to collapse and damaged thousands more, according to a statement on the county government's Web site.
By yesterday afternoon, the official Xinhua News Agency put the casualties at 600, with 142 injured seriously. The report quoted Deng Xianpei, mayor of Zhaotong, a city where one person was killed.
Residents were living in tents or sleeping outdoors, but summer temperatures were comfortable and supplies of drinking water and food were adequate, Shi said.
"We are very, very busy right now," he said before hanging up abruptly.
In its noon newscast, China Central Television showed huge piles of rubble and partially collapsed brick buildings at the earthquake site. Scores of people, some with bandages around their heads, were crammed into a room apparently serving as a makeshift shelter. Some slept on the floor while others sat on thin mattresses.
Doctors and nurses were shown treating the injured. Trucks delivering emergency supplies to the area drove down a dark, winding road.
An official from the China Seismological Bureau interviewed at the site said about 120,000 people had been affected by the quake, but gave no details. The official, identified only by his surname, Xu, said about 3,000 tents and medical supplies were scheduled to arrive yesterday.
Ludian county, with about 370,000 people, is one of China's poorest areas.
The epicenter was 255km north of Kunming, the provincial capital, Xinhua said.
In November, two quakes measuring magnitude 5.1 and 5.0 rocked the Ludian area, killing four people and injuring 120.
Elsewhere in Yunnan, a magnitude-6.2 tremor in July 2003 killed 16 people, while another last October killed three.
Hou Jiansheng, a seismologist at the China Seismological Bureau, said late Tuesday night that the number of dead and injured in Ludian may rise because "it's a poor rural area and their facilities aren't too good."
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
RSS