Tuesday, July 23, 2013

At least 75 dead in China earthquakes

RESCUERS have braved landslides and blocked roads to help victims of twin earthquakes in northwest China that killed 89 people and injured almost 600.

The tremors in Gansu province - with magnitudes of 5.9 and 5.6 - triggered landslides which buried often crudely constructed local houses, government-run broadcaster CCTV reported.

Pictures from the scene showed simple buildings reduced to rubble, with pieces of corrugated metal roofing scattered over the wreckage.

The government of Dingxi city in Gansu said on a social media account that 14 people remained missing.

Almost all the confirmed dead were in Min county, where a medicine factory employee said he saw tower blocks shake "ferociously" when the quake struck.

"I was in the workshop. I felt violent shaking and so I ran to the yard of the plant immediately," said the man, surnamed Ma.

"Our factory is only one floor. When I came to the yard, I saw an 18-storey building, the tallest in our county, shaking ferociously, especially the 18th floor."

An official at the provincial earthquake bureau said more than 1200 buildings collapsed and 21,000 were severely damaged, adding that 371 aftershocks had been recorded.

Zhu Wenqing, a 40-year-old farmer in Min county, told Xinhua news agency he had just got up when his house started shaking.

"I escaped immediately on hearing a 'bang' and feeling the tremor," he said, adding that his house collapsed after several aftershocks.

Nearly 3000 firefighters, police, soldiers and local government workers had been sent to the area, Xinhua said, but rescue efforts are being hampered by landslides and roads which had been blocked by heavy rain in previous days.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/newscomaubreakingndm/~3/7T9rZ5zpOWE/story01.htm

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