At least 19 people died and about 160 were injured when a 5.4 magnitude earthquake tore through the remote county of Yingjiang in southwestern China.
The quake, which struck early yesterday afternoon in the western extremity of Yunnan province, brought many houses crashing to the ground and dealt huge damage to larger buildings, including a hotel and shopping malls. Witnesses described the sight of a four-storey building being concertinaed to half its original height.
Industrial digging equipment was pressed into emergency use in an attempt to rescue a man and woman trapped in the crumpled shell of a small apartment block.
The first tremor, which was followed by a series of aftershocks, hit at a part of the day when many schoolchildren had come home for their lunch and a short nap.
The quake struck in a mountainous area that has suffered exceptional seismic activity in recent weeks. Since January the county, which has a population of around 300,000 has endured 1,146 quakes – all, until yesterday, below magnitude 5.0.
Advertisement
With the official injury count now above 166 and expected to rise, a large number of people are thought still to be trapped in pockets of rubble. Several have been heard crying for help from deep within the ruins of their homes and workplaces. People’s Liberation Army soldiers have reportedly been mobilised to assist with rescue efforts.
The epicentre of the quake was beneath the village of Shiming and just a short distance from China’s border with Burma. Electrical power to the area was cut by the quake, but communications equipment appeared unaffected.
China’s measuring equipment gauged the tremor at 5.8 magnitude and put it at a depth of 10 kilometres. The US Geological Survey reading showed 5.4 and 35km depth. The epicentre was some 370km northeast of the Burmese city of Mandalay.
China remains traumatised by the horrors of the massive quake that devastated a string of towns and villages across Sichuan province in 2008, claiming 87,000 lives.
Despite the passionate national energy that was channelled into relief efforts, the disaster exposed many of the darkest flaws in Chinese society. Corruption and corner-cutting in the construction industry was especially obvious when cheaply-built schools collapsed on entire classrooms full of children while official buildings remained standing.