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Authorities say more than
85 per cent of houses collapsed near the epicentre of the quake [CCTV] |
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Beijing:
A series of strong earthquakes struck a far western Tibetan area of
China on Wednesday, killing at least 400 people and injuring more
than 10,000 as houses made of mud and wood collapsed, trapping many
more, officials said.
The largest quake was recorded by the US Geological Survey as
magnitude 6.9. In the aftermath, panicked people, many bleeding from
their wounds, flooded the streets of a Qinghai province township
where most of the homes had been flattened.
Paramilitary police used shovels to dig through the rubble in the
town, footage on state television showed. Officials said excavators
were not available and with most of the roads leading to the nearest
airport damaged, equipment and rescuers would have a hard time
reaching the area.
Downed phone lines, strong winds and frequent aftershocks also
hindered rescue efforts, said Wu Yong, a local military chief.
Workers were racing to release water from a reservoir in the
disaster area where a crack had formed after the quake to prevent a
flood, according to the China Earthquake Administration.
The Wednesday morning quake was centered on Yushu county, in the
southern part of Qinghai, near Tibet, with a population of about
100,000, mostly herders and farmers.
The USGS recorded six temblors in less than three hours, all but one
registered 5.0 or higher. The China Earthquake Networks Center
measured the largest quake's magnitude at 7.1.
The main quake sent residents fleeing as it toppled houses made of
mud and wood, said Karsum Nyima, the Yushu county television
station's deputy head of news, speaking by phone with broadcaster
CCTV.
"In a flash, the houses went down. It was a terrible earthquake," he
said. "In a small park, there is a Buddhist pagoda and the top of
the pagoda fell off. ... Everybody is out on the streets, standing
in front of their houses, trying to find their family members."
The death toll rose to about 400 by afternoon, according to CCTV.
Emergency official Pubucairen, who goes by only one name, was quoted
as saying that the number of injured has risen to more than 10,000.
The earthquake comes a little less than two years after a
magnitude-7.9 quake in neighboring Sichuan province left almost
90,000 people dead or missing.
That quake flattened several schools, killing thousands of students.
Poor design, shoddy construction and the lax enforcement of building
codes were found to be rampant.
In Jiegu, a township 20 miles (30 kilometers) from the epicenter
that appeared to be one of the worst hit, the local fire brigade was
trying to rescue 20 students stuck inside a school, Kang Zifu, head
of the rescue team, told state television. They were also working to
pull out 40 to 50 people trapped in a toppled four-story building,
according to CCTV. It did not say what type of school it was.
More than 85 percent of houses had collapsed in Jiegu, while large
cracks have appeared on buildings still standing, the official
Xinhua News Agency cited Zhuohuaxia, a local publicity official, as
saying.
"The streets in Jiegu are thronged with panic and full of injured
people, with many of them bleeding from their injuries," said
Zhuohuaxia, who goes by one name.
The provincial emergency office told Xinhua that 700 soldiers were
trying to clear the rubble and rescue buried people and that 1,000
more troops would be dispatched.
A local military official, Shi Huajie, told CCTV rescuers were
working with limited equipment.
"The difficulty we face is that we don't have any excavators. Many
of the people have been buried and our soldiers are trying to pull
them out with human labor," Shi said. "It is very difficult to save
people with our bare hands."
Five thousand tents and 100,000 thick, cotton coats and heavy
blankets were being sent to help survivors cope with strong winds
and temperatures of around 43 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees
Celsius), the Qinghai provincial government said in a statement.
The epicenter of the first quake was 235 miles (380 kilometers)
south-southeast of Golmud, a large city in Qinghai, at a depth of
six miles (10 kilometers), the USGS said.
Xinhua cited officials at the China Earthquake Networks Center as
saying at least 18 aftershocks have been reported and that more
temblors exceeding magnitude 6 were likely to occur in the coming
days.
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