Rescue teams yesterday rushed to a popular tourist spot in eastern China after a powerful earthquake killed at least 13 people in the region and left hundreds of others injured, officials said.
Seven teams had been dispatched to the worst-hit areas to bring food, water and tents to the hundreds of thousands of people caught up in Saturday's quake, said Cao Junliang (
The official Xinhua news agency said yesterday that 13 people had died and more than 450 were injured in the 5.7-magnitude quake, believed to be the strongest to strike the region in half a century.
PHOTO: AFP
Initially 14 people were thought to have died and some newspapers yesterday reported that the toll was as high as 16.
Most of the dead were in and around the cities of Jiujiang and Ruichang in Jiangxi Province, although there was at least one fatality in Wuxue, a city in neighboring Hubei Province.
Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao (
camping out
In both Jiujiang and Ruichang, thousands of people yesterday crowded city streets, preparing to spend another night outside due to fears of aftershocks.
In and around Ruichang, a total of 420,000 people initially left their homes, apparently fearing that Saturday's morning quake might not be the last, according to the Xinhua Web site.
Many people remained in the streets yesterday, although shops and restaurants were open. Some played cards and mahjong, enjoying the sunny weather, with temperatures at about 17?C.
Officials handed out tents to those in need. Police and army personnel were seen in the streets.
Ruichang's main hospital moved dozens of patients into a makeshift tent outside the facility, separated into two sections -- one for those injured in the earthquake and another for regular patients.
In and around the city, most houses had suffered severe structural damage, with huge cracks in the walls, roofs torn apart and verandahs collapsed.
Officials said on Saturday that thousands of homes had been flattened in the quake.
Huge sinkholes measuring about 20m across and 5m deep pocked fields in rural areas.
The quake, which could be felt in cities hundreds of kilometers apart, occurred at 8:49am on Saturday, causing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.
`shallow' quake
The US Geological Survey said the quake occurred about 10km below the earth's surface.
That makes it a so-called "shallow" earthquake, similar to the devastating quake that struck Kashmir in early October, a category of tremor generally known to cause greater damage than deeper ones.
Jiujiang is home to half a million people and a traditional scenic spot that was praised by Tang dynasty poets more than a millennium ago.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was