Three people have died and up to 600 have been injured in an
earthquake in Southwest China's Yunnan Province on Tuesday.
Local sources said at least 594 people were injured, 142 of them
seriously, in a quake measuring 5.6 on the Richter scale, which
rocked Ludian County in the city of Zhaotong on Tuesday night.
Deng Xianpei, mayor of Zhaotong, said the quake killed three
locals, two in Ludian County and one in Zhaoyang District of
Zhaotong.
He
said the casualties are expected to rise because there were large
number of serious injuries.
Hou Jiansheng, a seismologist at the China Seismological Bureau,
said the number of dead and injured in Ludian would probably rise
because "it's a poor rural area and their facilities are not very
good."
Hospitals have been overwhelmed with the injured and some had to be
treated outside in the open.
In
Ludian County's Buga Village, teenager Li Zhangmei lost her mother
and her father was treated in hospital for serious injury.
But some were lucky.
Villager Ma Zhengbing's family home collapsed but they all escaped
because they were working in the fields when the tremors
started.
More than 5,000 homes were flattened and thousands more damaged,
said a spokesperson from the county government.
Many homes are now too dangerous to live in, said an unidentified
local official in the county.
The county's three hospitals are all packed with the injured, he
said.
He
said there had been some 92 aftershocks were still being carried
out.
Residents were living in tents or sleeping outdoors, but summer
temperatures were comfortable and supplies of drinking water and
food were adequate, the official said.
President Hu Jintao urged governments at all levels to provide as
much help as possible.
More than 7,000 tents have been sent to the disaster-hit
villages.
This is the third major quake to hit the county within a year. This
time the epicenter was just 255 kilometers north of Kunming, the
provincial capital. Four people were killed and 120 injured in the
two others, which struck in November and measured 5.1 and 5.0 on
the Richter scale.
Ludian County, in the east of Yunnan Province, has a population of
370,000. It is one of China's poorest counties.
(China Daily August 12, 2004)
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