A magnitude 5.1 earthquake hit a mountainous area in southwestern China yesterday, killing at least 19 people and injuring dozens, officials said.
The strong earthquake struck at 9:10am, toppling homes and sending large rocks tumbling down onto residential areas in and around Yunnan Province's Yanjin County, about 90km from Zhaotong City, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Xinhua said that several hundred workers had joined the rescue effort.
"Some were crushed inside their homes, others were killed by rocks falling from the mountains," said a Yanjin County earthquake administration official surnamed Zhan.
An official with the Yanjin County government, who would only give his surname, Xiao, said rescuers had so far confirmed 16 dead and 60 injured in Yanjin.
Xiao said about 100 houses were destroyed in the county and about 1,000 were damaged.
A man named Shen at the Zhaotong Seismological Bureau said three people were reported dead in nearby Daguan County. He had no figure for the number of injured there.
Shen, who would not give his full name, said the quake also damaged railroad tracks, forcing officials to shut down service between Sichuan's Neijiang City and Yunnan's capital of Kunming.
Houses in Yanjin -- a county with a population of 350,000 on the plateau that stretches across Yunnan and Guizhou provinces -- were mostly built near hillsides and vulnerable to earthquakes, Xinhua said, citing experts with the seismological bureau.
Many of the injured were hospitalized, it said.
A team from the State Seismological Administration left Beijing early yesterday, hoping to assist in assessing the damage and "maintaining social order," according to Xinhua.
bilis toll
Meanwhile, in Beijing, Chinese authorities were warned against cover-ups yesterday after the death toll from Tropical Storm Bilis more than doubled overnight.
A week after Bilis made landfall, the official number of people killed in its gales and floods was given at 518, nearly 300 more than the 228 previously reported, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
"Officials who try to hide the death toll will be punished," the agency said, citing the government of Hunan, the central province that bore the brunt of the destruction brought about by Bilis.
Hunan on Friday revised the province's number of fatalities dramatically upwards to 346, compared with 92 previously, with some evidence that the difference could partly be blamed on cover-ups.
Pingshi town, one of the worst affected areas, had only reported 39 dead and missing, but a TV team had found the actual number to be three times as large, the China Daily newspaper said yesterday.
"The statistics shocked me, too," said Zhao Baojun, an official with the Ministry of Civil Affairs in charge of gathering data about casualties from Bilis.
The ministry has sent an investigative team to Hunan, and also issued a notice warning against hiding the true extent of the damage.
"Those who are responsible for covering up the death toll and the number of missing people will be held accountable," the notice said, according to the China Daily.
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