Completely gone: A man inspecting a damaged building after an earthquake at Dahejia in Jishishan County in northwest Gansu province. — AFP
BEIJING: Braving sub-zero conditions, thousands of rescuers faced an uphill task finding and treating survivors of a strong earthquake that rocked a remote area in China’s northwestern Gansu province more than a day ago.
The magnitude-6.2 earthquake jolted Jishishan county near the border straddling Gansu and Qinghai provinces a minute before midnight on Monday, sending frightened residents out of homes into the cold in the dead of the night.
It damaged roads and power and water lines, destroyed over 150,000 homes, and triggered landslides and mudslides.
Emergency responses have been activated, with various departments sending thousands of personnel into the mountainous disaster zone to look for survivors and resettle them.
The quake-stricken area is geographically a transition zone between two plateaus, featuring terrains of altitudes ranging from 1,800m to 4,300m with “very complex” topography, state television CCTV said.
Recovery from Monday night’s earthquake has been further challenged by the powerful cold snap that has gripped most of China since last week.
Temperatures around the quake epicentre in Gansu fell to around -15˚C on Tuesday night as rescuers continued their work.
According to local media citing researchers, people trapped under rubble exposed to -10˚C conditions without help run the risk of developing hypothermia and could only stay alive for between five and 10 hours if uninjured.In Gansu, 113 people had been found dead as of 9am yesterday, and 782 were injured, authorities said. The death toll in Qinghai rose to 18 with 198 injured as of 5.30am yesterday.
Seventy-eight people have been rescued in Gansu, CCTV said.
The freezing cold would not be the only concern weighing on rescuers and working groups assessing the situation.
The Gansu Provincial Seismological Bureau said through comprehensive analysis, strong aftershocks of magnitude 5 were still possible around the area in the coming days, based on the characteristics of the Monday quake, historical seismic activity and other factors.
By early yesterday, there were two aftershocks of magnitude 4.0 and above, and eight magnitude 3.0 and above, China Earthquake Networks Center said.
Rice, flour and oil supply in Gansu’s Jishishan were sufficient at stable market prices, state grain reserves and food processing institutions said, having organised warehouses to deliver emergency supplies to the quake-stricken area.
Within 50 km of the epicentre on the side of neighbouring Qinghai province, the earthquake affected 22 towns and villages, but of that, two villages suffered the worst damage.
Qinghai’s Minhe county earlier recorded 20 missing people from two villages, where a mudslide swept through half-burying many buildings in brown silt.
Search and rescue operations and efforts to resettle residents continued as state media footage showed bulldozers removing thick mud. — Reuters
