At least 118 people have been killed and hundreds injured after an earthquake hit northwestern China in a remote and mountainous region while many were asleep at home.
The authorities quickly mobilised several emergency responses, but their work was complicated as the earthquake wrecked roads and infrastructure, triggered landslides, and half buried a village in silt. The rescue work has also proved challenging in subzero temperatures, with most of China grappling with below-freezing conditions after a powerful cold wave swept across the country.
“The mountainous, remote, arid regions are not easy to get to, and … they are more underdeveloped and poor than the rest of China and that is reflected in the quality of the construction,” said Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu reporting from Beijing, adding that the government said about 4,000 homes have been destroyed and some villages have collapsed entirely.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday called for “all-out efforts” in the search and relief operations. Nearly 1,500 firefighters were deployed with another 1,500 on standby, according to state media. More than 300 officers and soldiers were also mobilised for disaster relief.
The earthquake had a magnitude of 6.2, according to state news agency Xinhua. It struck at 23:59 pm (15:59 GMT) on Monday in Gansu province near the border with Qinghai, causing significant damage, state media reported on Tuesday.
The tremor was felt as far away as Xi’an in northern Shaanxi province, about 570km (350 miles) from the epicentre.
Gansu provincial authorities told a press conference that as of 7:50am (23:50 GMT on Monday), 105 people had been confirmed dead, and 397 injured. More than 4,700 houses had been damaged, they added. Power and water supplies were disrupted in some villages, Xinhua said.
A further 13 people died, 182 were injured and 20 were missing in the city of Haidong in neighbouring Qinghai province, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
