Magnitude-7 earthquake jolts Sichuan near 2008 quake zone
Source: Agencies |
April 21, 2013, Sunday
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A POWERFUL earthquake struck in the hills of China's southwestern Sichuan Province yesterday, leaving at least 179 people dead and nearly 7,000 injured.
This comes almost five years after a devastating quake wreaked havoc across the region.
Yesterday's quake, while not as destructive as the one in 2008, toppled buildings, triggered landslides and disrupted phone and power connections in mountainous Lushan county, near Ya'an City. The village of Longmen was hit particularly hard, with authorities saying nearly all the buildings there had been destroyed in a frightening minute-long quake.
"It was such a big quake that everyone was scared," said a woman, who did not give her name, who answered the phone at a kindergarten there hours later. "We all fled for our lives."
Rescuers turned the square outside the Lushan County Hospital into an emergency center, where medical personnel could be seen bandaging bleeding victims in footage shown on China Central Television.
Rescuers dynamited boulders that had fallen across roads to reach Longmen and other damaged settlements farther up the mountain valleys, state media reported.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it was in discussions with the Red Cross Society of China on whether international support was needed.
The quake, measured by the earthquake administration at magnitude-7.0 and by the US Geological Survey at 6.6, struck the steep hills of Lushan County shortly after 8am, when many people were sleeping or having breakfast.
People in their underwear and wrapped in blankets ran into the streets of Ya'an and even the provincial capital of Chengdu, 115 kilometers east of Lushan, according to online accounts, photographs and video footage.
The comparative shallowness of the quake - less than 13 kilometers deep - likely magnified the impact.
Chengdu's airport shut down for about an hour before reopening, though many flights were canceled or delayed, and its railway station halted dozens of services yesterday.
Casualty concern
Lushan reported the most deaths, but there was concern that casualties in neighboring Baoxing county might have been under-reported because of its inaccessibility after roads were blocked and power and phone services cut off.
As the region went into the first night after the quake, rain started to fall, slowing rescue work. Forecasts are for more rain over the next few days, and the China Meteorological Administration has warned of landslides.
Tens of thousands of people moved into tents or cars, unable to return home or too afraid to go back as aftershocks continued to jolt the region.
Lushan, lies where the fertile Sichuan plain meets foothills that eventually rise to the Tibetan plateau and sits on the Longmenshan fault. It was along that fault line that a devastating magnitude-7.9 Wenchuan earthquake struck on May 12, 2008, leaving 87,000 people dead or missing and presumed dead in one of the worst natural disasters to strike China in recent decades.
"It was just like May 12," Liu Xi, a writer in Ya'an City jolted awake by yesterday's quake, put in a private message on a Sina Weibo microblog account.
"All the ornaments fell, and the old house cracked."
Xinhua News Agency said the well-known Bifengxia Panda Reserve, which is near Lushan, was not affected by the quake. Dozens of pandas were moved to Bifengxia from another preserve, Wolong, after its habitat was wrecked by the 2008 quake.
The earthquake administration said there had been at least 712 aftershocks, including two of magnitude-5.0 or higher.
"It's too dangerous," posted Weibo user Chengduxinglin, who has a Lushan geotag. "Even the aftershocks are scary."
While rescuers and state media rushed to the disaster scene, China's active social media users filled the information gap. They posted photographs of people fleeing to streets for safety and of buildings flattened by the quake. Social media users also shared information on the availability of phone services, apparently through data services.
This comes almost five years after a devastating quake wreaked havoc across the region.
Yesterday's quake, while not as destructive as the one in 2008, toppled buildings, triggered landslides and disrupted phone and power connections in mountainous Lushan county, near Ya'an City. The village of Longmen was hit particularly hard, with authorities saying nearly all the buildings there had been destroyed in a frightening minute-long quake.
"It was such a big quake that everyone was scared," said a woman, who did not give her name, who answered the phone at a kindergarten there hours later. "We all fled for our lives."
Rescuers turned the square outside the Lushan County Hospital into an emergency center, where medical personnel could be seen bandaging bleeding victims in footage shown on China Central Television.
Rescuers dynamited boulders that had fallen across roads to reach Longmen and other damaged settlements farther up the mountain valleys, state media reported.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it was in discussions with the Red Cross Society of China on whether international support was needed.
The quake, measured by the earthquake administration at magnitude-7.0 and by the US Geological Survey at 6.6, struck the steep hills of Lushan County shortly after 8am, when many people were sleeping or having breakfast.
People in their underwear and wrapped in blankets ran into the streets of Ya'an and even the provincial capital of Chengdu, 115 kilometers east of Lushan, according to online accounts, photographs and video footage.
The comparative shallowness of the quake - less than 13 kilometers deep - likely magnified the impact.
Chengdu's airport shut down for about an hour before reopening, though many flights were canceled or delayed, and its railway station halted dozens of services yesterday.
Casualty concern
Lushan reported the most deaths, but there was concern that casualties in neighboring Baoxing county might have been under-reported because of its inaccessibility after roads were blocked and power and phone services cut off.
As the region went into the first night after the quake, rain started to fall, slowing rescue work. Forecasts are for more rain over the next few days, and the China Meteorological Administration has warned of landslides.
Tens of thousands of people moved into tents or cars, unable to return home or too afraid to go back as aftershocks continued to jolt the region.
Lushan, lies where the fertile Sichuan plain meets foothills that eventually rise to the Tibetan plateau and sits on the Longmenshan fault. It was along that fault line that a devastating magnitude-7.9 Wenchuan earthquake struck on May 12, 2008, leaving 87,000 people dead or missing and presumed dead in one of the worst natural disasters to strike China in recent decades.
"It was just like May 12," Liu Xi, a writer in Ya'an City jolted awake by yesterday's quake, put in a private message on a Sina Weibo microblog account.
"All the ornaments fell, and the old house cracked."
Xinhua News Agency said the well-known Bifengxia Panda Reserve, which is near Lushan, was not affected by the quake. Dozens of pandas were moved to Bifengxia from another preserve, Wolong, after its habitat was wrecked by the 2008 quake.
The earthquake administration said there had been at least 712 aftershocks, including two of magnitude-5.0 or higher.
"It's too dangerous," posted Weibo user Chengduxinglin, who has a Lushan geotag. "Even the aftershocks are scary."
While rescuers and state media rushed to the disaster scene, China's active social media users filled the information gap. They posted photographs of people fleeing to streets for safety and of buildings flattened by the quake. Social media users also shared information on the availability of phone services, apparently through data services.
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