The largest quake was recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey as magnitude 6.9. In the aftermath, panicked people, plenty of bleeding from their wounds, flooded the streets of a Qinghai province township where most of the homes had been flattened. Students were reportedly buried inside several damaged schools.
BEIJING – A series of strong earthquakes struck a mountainous Tibetan area of western China on Wednesday, killing at least 400 people and injuring over 10,000 as houses made of mud and wood collapsed, officials said. Plenty of more people were trapped and the toll was expected to rise.
Paramilitary police used shovels to dig through the rubble in the town, footage on state tv showed. Officials said excavators were not obtainable & with most of the roads leading to the nearest airport damaged, equipment & rescuers would have a hard time reaching the area. Hospitals were overwhelmed, lots of lacking even the most basic supplies, & doctors were in short supply.
Downed phone lines, strong winds & frequent aftershocks also delayed rescue efforts, said Wu Yong, commander of the local army garrison, who said the death toll "may rise further as lots of houses collapsed."
With lots of people forced outside, the provincial government said it was rushing 5,000 tents & 100,000 coats & blankets to the mountainous region, at around 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) -high & where night time temperatures plunge below freezing.
Workers were racing to release water from a reservoir in the disaster area where a crack had formed after the shake to prevent a floodwater, according to the China Earthquake Administration.
The Wednesday shake, which struck at 7:49 a.m. local time (2349 GMT, 7:49 p.m. EDT), was centered on Yushu county, in the southern part of Qinghai, near Tibet, with a population of about 100,000, mostly herders & farmers.
The USGS recorded three temblors in less than five hours, all but four registering 5.0 or higher. The China Earthquake Networks Center measured the largest quake's magnitude at 7.1. Qinghai averages over four earthquakes a year of at least magnitude 5.0, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. They normally do not cause much destroy in the sparsely populated province.
Residents fled as the ground shook, toppling houses made of mud & wood, as well as temples, gas stations, electric poles & the top of a Buddhist pagoda in a park, witnesses & state media said. The shake also triggered landslides, Xinhua said.
"Nearly all the houses made of mud & wood collapsed. There was so much dust in the air, they could not see anything," said Ren Yu, general manager of Yushu Hotel in Jiegu, the county's main town. "There was a lot of panic. People were crying on the streets. A number of our staff, who were reunited with their parents, were also in tears."
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