Strong quake kills at least 175 in Yunnan

Strong quake kills at least 175 in Yunnan

BEIJING — A strong earthquake jolted southern China's Yunnan province on Sunday, toppling thousands of homes and killing at least 175 people.

A general view shows collapsed houses after an earthquake hit Ludian county, Yunnan province, on Sunday. (Reuters/China Daily photo)

The magnitude-6.1 quake struck at 4.30pm (3.30pm Thailand time) at a depth of 10 kilometres, according to the US Geological Survey. Its epicentre was in Longtoushan township, 23 kilometers southwest of the city of Zhaotong, the Ludian county seat.

China's official Xinhua News Agency said at least 175 people were killed in the quake, with 181 missing and 1,402 injured.

A handout satilite intensity map image made available by the US Geological Survey National Earthquake Information Center on Sunday showing the Magnitude 6.1 earthquake centre in Yunnan province. (EPA/USGS photo)

"Too many buildings were damaged and we are collecting data on deaths and injuries," Xinhua quoted a local official as saying from the township of Longtoushan.

Ma Liya, a resident of Zhaotong, told Xinhua that the streets there were like "battlefield after bombardment''. She added that her neighbour's house, a new two-story building, had toppled.

State television broadcast footage of people running from their homes and gathering in the street, as witnesses described the devastation on social media.

"The walls of several buildings crumbled, and water pipes were ruptured. The electricity was cut off," wrote a user who said they lived in Ludian county, 23 kilometres from the epicentre, on China's Twitter-like Weibo.

The user's message was accompanied by images of cracked walls and a pile of bricks strewn across the road.

Another Ludian resident described the scene as resembling a "battlefield after bombardment", telling Xinhua "I have never felt (such) strong tremors before. What I can see are all ruins."

At least 122 of the dead were in densely populated Ludian county, with another 1,300 people injured there, Xinhua reported. It said another 49 people died and 102 were injured in Qiaojia county.

Rescuers carry an injuried child on a stretcher after a 6.1 magnitude earthquake hit the area in Ludian county in Zhaotong, southwest China's Yunnan province on Sunday. (AFP photo)

Xinhua said about 12,000 homes were toppled in Ludian, a county of 429,000 people located around 366 kilometres northeast of Yunnan province's capital, Kunming.

Chen Guoyong, the head of Longtoushan township, told Xinhua that many houses there had collapsed.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said the quake was the strongest to hit Yunnan in 14 years. It reported that the quake loosened rocks that blocked a road near the city of Zhaotong and broadcast an image of a car apparently damaged by debris from the temblor.

Complicating matters, the road leading to Longtoushan was damaged in a landslide before the quake.

In 1970, a magnitude-7.7 earthquake in Yunnan killed at least 15,000 people, and a magnitude-7.1 quake in the province killed more than 1,400 in 1974. In September 2012, 81 people died and 821 were injured in a series of quakes in the Yunnan region.

Southwest China lies where the Eurasian and Indian plates meet and is prone to earthquakes.

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