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."
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
PRECARIOUS RELATIONS: Commentators in Saudi Arabia accuse the UAE of growing too bold, backing forces at odds with Saudi interests in various conflicts A Saudi Arabian media campaign targeting the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has deepened the Gulf’s worst row in years, stoking fears of a damaging fall-out in the financial heart of the Middle East. Fiery accusations of rights abuses and betrayal have circulated for weeks in state-run and social media after a brief conflict in Yemen, where Saudi airstrikes quelled an offensive by UAE-backed separatists. The United Arab Emirates is “investing in chaos and supporting secessionists” from Libya to Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Saudi Arabia’s al-Ekhbariya TV charged in a report this week. Such invective has been unheard of
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
US President Donald Trump on Saturday warned Canada that if it concludes a trade deal with China, he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all goods coming over the border. Relations between the US and its northern neighbor have been rocky since Trump returned to the White House a year ago, with spats over trade and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney decrying a “rupture” in the US-led global order. During a visit to Beijing earlier this month, Carney hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China that resulted in a “preliminary, but landmark trade agreement” to reduce tariffs — but
RSS