Bitter cold in China's earthquake zone - death toll rises to over 130
According to the state news agency Xinhua, almost a thousand people suffered injuries. Tens of thousands of buildings were destroyed or damaged.
The search for possible survivors has now been suspended, a representative of the Gansu disaster control authority said on Wednesday. The main task now is to treat the injured and find accommodation for the residents who have been left homeless.
Near the epicenter in the Jishishan district of Gansu, numerous survivors spent the night on Wednesday in tents improvised from wooden poles and tarpaulins, reported an AFP reporter. The only source of warmth in temperatures as low as minus 17 degrees were outdoor stoves and blankets that people were able to fetch from their destroyed homes.
Rescue teams unloaded large bundles of relief supplies and more tents. "There are eight of us in our family, but we were only given three portions of instant noodles," complained one affected person.
According to Chinese data, the quake had a magnitude of 6.2, the US earthquake monitoring system USGS gave it as 5.9. The epicenter was around 100 kilometers southwest of Gansu's provincial capital Lanzhou and around 1300 kilometers southwest of the capital Beijing. The authorities warned that further tremors with a magnitude of more than 5.0 were possible in the coming days.
The quake was the deadliest in China since 2014, when more than 600 people died in the southwestern province of Yunnan. The People's Republic is repeatedly shaken by earthquakes, some of which are devastating. In 2008, a 7.9-magnitude quake in Sichuan province killed more than 87,000 people. In September 2022, almost a hundred people died in an earthquake, also in Sichuan.
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Source: www.stern.de
