Rescue efforts were yesterday under way after an earthquake in southwestern China left 12 people dead and 135 injured, authorities said.
Hundreds of firefighters arrived in Sichuan Province early yesterday and rescued at least eight trapped people, the Chinese Ministry of Emergency Management said.
State broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) showed soldiers using a chainsaw to cut through a wooden door and rescue a couple under a fallen kitchen wall.
Photo: Reuters
Most of the deaths were caused by damage to houses, the official Xinhua news agency said.
A major highway and sections of other roads were closed, Xinhua said.
CCTV showed a landslide down a hill and onto a road.
Sichuan emergency management officials said that direct economic losses exceeded 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million).
A magnitude 6 earthquake and a magnitude 5.1 aftershock struck the area in Sichuan late on Monday night. There were at least four aftershocks, which continued into yesterday morning.
The hardest-hit area appeared to be Changning County, part of the city of Yibin.
CCTV reported that a hospital in Changning transferred all of its patients because of building damage.
More than 4,000 people were relocated following the earthquake, the Yibin City Government said.
CCTV showed footage of rescuers carrying a survivor out of the rubble of a building on a stretcher overnight. Other images showed a woman being helped out of another collapsed structure.
Images from Changning showed an electricity pole knocked down onto the roof of a building, a hole in a brick home and glass from broken windows on the street.
Cracks appeared in several roads and a major highway connecting Yibin and Xuyong County was closed, Xinhua said.
More than 10,000 rooms within an undisclosed number of buildings were moderately damaged, while 12 collapsed, Yibin authorities said.
The homes of more than 4,000 families were damaged in Gong County.
An early warning alarm system was triggered in the provincial capital, Chengdu, about one minute before the earthquake struck, Xinhua said. The alert rang 10 seconds before it hit Yibin.
A three-second head start before an earthquake strikes can prevent 14 percent of casualties, Xinhua said.
Nine people died in Changning and three others in Qixian County, the Yibin City Government said on a microblogging site, up from an initial death toll of six overnight.
Rescuers pulled six bodies and seven survivors from buildings, it said.
More than 50 people were being treated in two hospitals, Xinhua said.
More than 500 firefighters have been dispatched to the scene, it said, adding that rescue personnel were also sent with 5,000 tents, 10,000 folding cots and other emergency supplies.
Earthquakes regularly strike Sichuan, where a powerful magnitude 7.9 earthquake left 87,000 people dead or missing in 2008.
In February, three earthquakes hit Rongxian County, killing two people and injuring 12 others — casualties that residents blamed on fracking.
Local authorities later halted shale gas mining after thousands of residents protested.
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