Sunday Times 2
120 dead, thousands injured in China quake
View(s):YA’AN, China, April 20 (AFP) – More than 120 people were killed and 3,000 injured when a strong earthquake hit a mountainous part of southwestern China today, destroying thousands of homes and triggering landslides. The shallow earthquake struck Sichuan province on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau just after 8:00 am, prompting a major rescue operation in the same area where 87,000 people were reported dead or missing in a massive quake in 2008.
An aerial view shows houses damaged after a strong earthquake in Lushan county, Ya'an, Sichuan province (REUTERS)
Ten hours after the quake hit Lushan county in the city of Ya’an, the death toll stood at 124, the state television station CCTV said on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo, citing the China Earthquake Administration. At least 10,000 homes were destroyed, the Sichuan government said.
Local seismologists registered the quake at magnitude 7.0 while the US Geological Survey gave it as 6.6. More than 260 aftershocks followed, the People’s Daily said on its website. The shaking was felt in the provincial capital Chengdu, which lies to the east, and even in the megacity of Chongqing several hundred kilometres away.
Panicked residents fled into the streets, some of them still in their slippers and pyjamas. About 6,000 soldiers and police were heading to the area to help rescue work and five drones were sent to capture aerial images, the Xinhua news agency said.
Some teams had to contend with roads blocked by debris, CCTV reported, while one military vehicle carrying 17 troops plummeted over a cliff, killing one soldier and injuring seven others, Xinhua said. “There are mountains on all sides, it is very easy to trigger mudslides and very dangerous,” one user wrote on Sina Weibo.
The disaster evoked comparisons to the 2008 Sichuan quake, the country’s worst in decades, and President Xi Jinping ordered all out efforts to minimise casualties, Xinhua said. Premier Li Keqiang arrived in Sichuan in the afternoon and was taking a helicopter to the quake zone.
“The current most urgent issue is grasping the first 24 hours since the quake’s occurrence, the golden time for saving lives,” he was quoted as saying.
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