AT LEAST 22 people were killed and hundreds injured in an earthquake that hit China’s far southwest yesterday, an official said.
Part of a supermarket collapsed in the magnitude 5.8 quake, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Gao Shaotang, an official with the Yunnan disaster relief centre, said many houses had collapsed.
The website of the government earthquake monitoring station said the tremor struck in Yunnan at a depth of six miles. The epicentre was at Shiming Village, just over a mile from the county seat, and it triggered a power outage across Yingjiang, Xinhua said.
The US Geological Survey put the quake at magnitude 5.4. Quakes of magnitude 5 or more are capable of causing damage.
The epicentre is in a mountainous area 1,500 miles southwest of Beijing, close to the border with Burma.
China Central Television said that the the quake had hit while many people, including students, were home for a customary midday rest. The report said at least two students were among those killed, but did not give details. The state broadcaster showed several buildings with concrete foundations that had cracked and buckled.
The channel reported that about 100 armed police, firefighters and soldiers were using three excavators to try to rescue a man and a girl trapped inside a four-storey building that had partially collapsed. He Shuhui, head of an armed police squad, was quoted as saying they were trapped in a stairway on the ground floor of the building. – (AP)