Facing sub-zero conditions, thousands of rescuers faced an uphill task on Wednesday finding and treating survivors of a deadly earthquake that jolted a remote area in China’s northwestern Gansu province.
The magnitude-6.2 earthquake rocked Jishishan County near the border straddling Gansu and Qinghai provinces a minute before midnight on Monday. The quake damaged roads and power and water lines, destroyed homes, and triggered landslides and mudslides. Recovery from the massive earthquake has been further challenged by the powerful cold snap that has gripped most of China since last week, news agencies reported.
Temperatures around the quake epicentre in Gansu fell to around minus 15 degrees Celsius on Tuesday night as rescuers continued their work. People trapped under rubble exposed to minus 10 C conditions without help run the risk of developing hypothermia and could only stay alive for between five and 10 hours if uninjured.
131 Dead
In Gansu alone, 113 people had been found dead as of 9:00 am on Wednesday, and 782 were injured, authorities said. The death toll in Qinghai rose to 18 with 198 injured as of 5:30 am on Wednesday. Seventy-eight people have been rescued in Gansu, state media said.
Earthquakes are common in provinces such as Gansu, lying on the northeastern boundary of the tectonically active Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. The quake-stricken area is geographically a transition zone between two plateaus, featuring terrains of altitudes ranging from 1,800 to 4,300 metres with “very complex” topography, state television CCTV said. The freezing cold would not be the only concern weighing on rescuers and working groups assessing the situation.
The Gansu Provincial Seismological Bureau said through comprehensive analysis, strong aftershocks of magnitude 5 were still possible around the area in the coming days, based on the characteristics of the Monday quake, historical seismic activity and other factors. Xinhua cited the bureau’s deputy director as saying that the aftershocks will be closely tracked to issue early warnings.
The China Earthquake Networks Center said there were two aftershocks of magnitude 4.0 and above, and eight magnitude 3.0 and above. The quake in Gansu’s Jishishan county was logged at a depth of 10 km, which experts consider shallow. Earthquakes with shallow focal points can easily cause considerable damage to the ground, Xinhua reported citing a senior engineer with the China Seismological Network Center.
(With agency inputs)
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