Victor Ezeja
AdminThe death toll from China’s deadliest earthquake in years climbed to 148 on Friday, with more than 700 reported injured in icy conditions. No fewer than a dozen aftershock have since been reported in the vicinity.
The 6.2 magnitude quake hit mountainous Gansu province around midnight on Monday (16:00 GMT), also shaking neighbouring Qinghai. Initially, 117 people were killed in Gansu province and 31 others in neighbouring Qinghai.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the deployment of thousands of rescue crew to the region, among the poorest and most diverse in China.
Over 139,000 people have been moved to emergency shelters across the two provinces, according to state broadcaster CCTV, which said rescuers in Gansu were “fully shifting the focus of their work toward resettling affected populations and treating the injured”.
The authorities have now turned their attention to resettling thousands of people displaced by the disaster. But emergency response teams were still searching for trapped victims in Qinghai on Friday morning, according to CCTV.
Zhongchuan township on Tuesday after a “sand boil” — a phenomenon that can occur during an earthquake when soil liquefies and forces sand and water out of the ground.
The quake was China’s deadliest since 2014, when more than 600 people were killed in southwestern Yunnan province.
Almost 1,000 were injured across the two provinces after the shallow tremor on Monday, measured at 5.9 by the US Geological Survey. Dozens of smaller aftershocks followed.
Subzero temperatures have made the aid operation even more challenging.
Residents who fled their homes were also shown huddling over makeshift fires at hastily erected evacuation camps. Temperatures hit -13C (8.7F) on Tuesday, Chinese media reported.
Survivors said the tremors had felt like “being tossed by surging waves” and recalled rushing out of their apartments.
“I woke my family up and we rushed down all 16 floors in one breath,” said one man named Mr Qin by Chinese outlets.
China is particularly prone to earthquakes with the most devastating in recent decades happening in the south-western province of Sichuan in 2008 which resulted in the death of 87,000 people.
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