Quake hits china

BEIJING (AP) — A strong earthquake that
shook an arid, hilly farming area in
northwest China sparked landslides and
destroyed or damaged thousands of brick-
and-mud homes Monday, killing at least 75
people and injuring more than 400, the
government said.
The quake near the city of Dingxi in Gansu
province toppled brick walls and telephone
lines, shattered mud-and-tile-roofed
houses and sent cascades of dirt and rock
down hillsides that blocked roads and
slowed rescue efforts by crews trying to
reach remote areas.
Hospitals set up aid stations in parking lots
to accommodate large numbers of injured,
while hundreds of paramilitary People's
Armed Police fanned out to search for
victims in the region of terraced farmland
where the quake struck about 1,200
kilometers (760 miles) west of Beijing.
"I saw the bulb hanging from the ceiling
start swinging wildly around. I woke my two
friends and we ran into the bathroom to
hide," said arts student Li Jingui, 21, who
was on the fourth floor of a school
dormitory in Dingxi when the shaking
started.
"After the strongest tremors were over, we
were worried that there would be
aftershocks so we packed our stuff and ran
out into a large clearing," Li said in a
telephone interview.
In addition to the 75 confirmed dead, there
were 14 people missing and 459 injured,
the central government's China Earthquake
Administration said.
Damage was worst in Min county in
Dingxi's rural southern portion, where
scores of homes were damaged and
telephone and electricity services knocked
out, Dingxi Mayor Tang Xiaoming told state
broadcaster CCTV. All but three of the
deaths, all the missing and most of the
injured were in Min, a likely result of
shoddy construction.
Residents said the shaking lasted about
one minute, but wasn't strong enough to
cause major damage in urban areas, where
buildings are more solidly built.
"You could see the chandeliers wobble and
the windows vibrating and making noise,
but there aren't any cracks in the walls.
Shop assistants all poured out onto the
streets when the shaking began," said a
front desk clerk at the Wuyang Hotel in the
Zhang County seat about 40 kilometers (25
miles) from the epicenter. The clerk
surnamed Bao refrained from identifying
herself further, as is common among
ordinary Chinese.
Tremors were felt in the provincial capital
of Lanzhou 177 kilometers (110 miles)
north, and as far away as Xi'an, 400
kilometers (250 miles) to the east.
The government's earthquake monitoring
center said the initial quake at 7:45 a.m.
(2345 GMT Sunday) was magnitude-6.6 and
subsequent tremors included a
magnitude-5.6.
The quake was shallow, which can be more
destructive. The center said it struck about
20 kilometers (12.4 miles) beneath the
surface, while the Gansu provincial
earthquake administration said it was just 6
kilometers (3.7 miles) deep. The U.S.
Geological Survey measured the magnitude
of the initial quake as 5.9 and the depth at
10 kilometers (6 miles).
Initial measurements of an earthquake can
vary widely, especially if different
monitoring equipment is used.
Su Wei, leader of a 120-member rescue
team from the paramilitary People's Armed
Police, told state broadcaster CCTV that
they were on their way to the epicenter, but
progress was being slowed by mud and
rock slides blocking the road.
The Chinese Red Cross said it was shipping
200 tents, 1,000 sets of household items,
and 2,000 jackets to the area and sending
teams from both Lanzhou and Beijing to
help with relief work and assess further
needs.
Heavy rain is expected in the area later in
the week, raising the need for shelter and
increasing the chance of further landslides.
Almost 2,000 homes were either destroyed
or heavily damaged, with thousands more
suffering partial damage, according to the
Dingxi government website. It said 14,066
households were without power and five
county and township roads had been cut.
Gansu province, a region of mountains,
desert and pastureland with a population
of 26 million, is one of China's more lightly
populated provinces, although the New
Jersey-sized area of Dingxi has a greater
concentration of farms in rolling hills
terraced for crops and fruit trees. Dingxi
has a total population of about 2.7 million.
China's worst earthquake in recent years
was a 7.9-magnitude temblor that struck
the southwestern province of Sichuan in
2008, leaving 90,000 people dead or
missing.