THE picturesque town of Lijiang in south west China, featured two years ago in the acclaimed Channel 4 series Beyond the Clouds, been hit by China's deadliest earthquake in eight years.
At least 240 people were killed, 14,000 were injured, thousands of homes were destroyed, and there are fears that the death toll could rise above 300.
Last night, hundreds of thousands of homeless victims were sleeping in the open in freezing weather for a second night, jolted by aftershocks, and the Chinese Red Cross appealed for international aid.
The quake, measuring 7.0 on the open ended Richter scale, struck the remote region of Yunnan province, 2,000 km south west of Beijing, on Saturday night as people were at home, eating dinner or watching television.
Lijiang, which is the centre of the 275,000 Naxi minority people, was close to the epicentre of the earthquake. The nearby town of Zhongdian, capital of the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Region, was also badly hit, and last night was completely cut off from the outside world, the official Xinhua news agency said.
The earthquake is the second major disaster to hit China within a matter of days. Last week, at least 120 people were killed when an illegal cache of dynamite blew up in the basement of a five storey apartment building, wiping out a street in a suburb of Shaoyang city, in Hunan province.
The Chinese authorities at the weekend named a laid off worker, Mr He Geng, who they said had stored 28 tons of dynamite in the basement, after receiving it in lieu of a debt. Mr He was said to have been running an illegal explosives firm, probably selling dynamite to local private coal mining operators.
In Lijiang and the surrounding rural areas yesterday, 2,000 soldiers and teams of doctors were searching the rubble of collapsed homes and trying to reach remote mountain villages. The region is home to several minority nationalities including Naxis, Yi, Musuo, Pumi and Lisu, whose mud brick villages are among the poorest in China.
Lijiang town is divided between a new town and the beautiful Naxi old town, made up of cobbled alleys, old style Naxi stone terraced houses, and a system of water channels. About 10 per cent of the old town had collapsed, according to first reports.
The Beyond the Clouds series broadcast in Britain in early 1994 told the stories of a group of Lijiang inhabitants, including the old town's gossiping "grannies" dressed in the traditional blue and white Naxi costume.
The Lijiang valley, dominated by the snow capped Jade Dragon Snow mountain, is popular with foreigners, but there were no reports of tourists in the town being killed or injured. Residents and foreigners were sleeping in makeshift camps in parks and sports fields as the region continued to be hit by aftershocks.
Yunnan is prone to earthquakes, and in recent months has been prone to tremors. In October, 44 people were killed when a tremor measuring 6.5 hit an area near the provincial capital, Kunming.
Taiwan's government said yesterday that it wanted to help rival Beijing cope with the aftermath of the earthquake.
We hope through appropriate channels to show our care for the people there. Also, we should consider how to lend an appropriate helping hand," the Prime Minister, Mr Lien Chan, said.
Mr Lien's offer comes at a time when relations between Taiwan and China, rivals since a civil war split them in 1949, are at a low ebb. Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province, has launched several verbal salvos at Taipei in the past week. It refused to deny a report by the New York Times that it plans to attack the island after Taiwan's presidential elections on March 23rd.
Bilateral ties soured after Taiwan President Lee Teng hui made a landmark visit to the United States in June last year. Beijing, which claims sovereign authority over all China, says Taiwan is not entitled to international relations.