Magnitude 6.2 Earthquake Kills 118 in China’s Gansu, Qinghai

BEIJING, (Reuters) : A magnitude-6.2 earthquake jolted a remote and mountainous region on the northern edge of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau just before midnight on Monday, killing at least 118 people and injuring hundreds, according to Chinese state media.

Authorities have mobilised an array of emergency responses, but rescue work has proved challenging in subzero temperatures. Most of China was grappling with freezing temperatures as a cold wave swept across the country.

Earthquakes are common in western provinces such as Gansu which lie on the eastern boundary of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, a tectonically active area. China’s deadliest quake in recent decades was in 2008 when a magnitude-8.0 temblor struck Sichuan, killing nearly 70,000 people.

At 11:59 p.m. local time (1559 GMT) on Monday, the latest quake struck Jishishan county in Gansu at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles), according to China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC).

The epicentre was 5 km from the border between Gansu and a neighbouring province, Qinghai, where strong tremors were also felt.

In Gansu, 105 were killed as of 7:50 a.m. Tuesday (2350 GMT Monday), and of 397 injured as of 9:30 a.m., 16 were in critical condition, provincial authorities told a news conference.

The death tally in Qinghai rose to at least 13 with 182 injured.

Officially, 20 people remained missing.

About 2,200 personnel from the Gansu provincial fire department and 900 from the forest brigade, as well as 260 professional emergency rescue workers, were dispatched to the disaster zone, the Xinhua news agency reported, adding that hundreds from the military and police were also deployed.

The province, which has allocated 20 million yuan ($2.8 million) to the local government for emergency response work, also sent supplies that included 2,600 cotton tents, 10,400 folding beds, 10,400 quilts, 10,400 cotton mattresses, and 1,000 sets of stoves.

Local authorities also imposed traffic restrictions into Jishishan for until rescue work is done.