No fewer than 111 people have been killed and 397 injured after a 6.2-magnitude earthquake tore through a county in China’s northwest Gansu province.
The quake had a focal depth of 10 km and happened at 11:59 pm on Monday, says China Earthquake Networks Centre.
Xinhua, a state-owned media, said the earthquake was also felt strongly in the cities of Xining and Haidong in Qinghai, where some houses collapsed and cracked.
The provincial fire and rescue department has sent 580 rescuers aided with 88 fire engines, 12 search and rescue dogs, and more than 10,000 sets of equipment to the disaster area.
But a bitter winter cold with temperatures plummeting below minus 10 degrees Celsius and the seizure of water, electricity supply, as well as mobile signals in some areas, due to the quake, has complicated rescue efforts.
The railway authority has also suspended passenger and cargo trains passing through the quake zone and ordered a safety check of railway tracks, Xinhua added.
Due to high altitudes, cold weather and complex geological conditions, the county is prone to natural disasters like earthquakes.
Since 1900, the area within a radius of 100 km from the epicenter has recorded seven earthquakes above magnitude 5.
However, last night’s quake is on course to be the deadliest to have hit China in nearly a decade, since an earthquake in the southwestern province of Yunnan killed around 600 people in 2014.
On Tuesday, the Chinese government allocated 200 million yuan to support disaster relief efforts in the earthquake-hit Gansu and Qinghai provinces.
Of the total, 150 million yuan will be used to support Gansu, while 50 million yuan will go to Qinghai, according to the ministry of emergency management and the ministry of finance.
