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."
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS