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Rescuers with shovels and sniffer dogs chipped away at collapsed
hillsides Tuesday as the death toll rose to 94 from a strong earthquake
in a farming region of northwest China. Just one person was listed as
missing and 1,001 as injured in Monday morning’s quake near the city of
Dingxi in Gansu province. About 123,000 people were affected by the
quake, with 31,600 moved to temporary shelters, the provincial
earthquake administration said on its website. Almost 2,000 homes were
completely destroyed, and about 22,500 damaged, the administration said.
The quake toppled brick walls and telephone lines, shattered
mud-and-tile-roofed houses and sent cascades of dirt and rock down
hillsides, blocking roads and slowing rescue efforts by crews trying to
reach remote areas. Hospitals set up aid stations in parking lots to
accommodate the injured, while hundreds of paramilitary People’s Armed
Police fanned out to search for victims in the region of terraced
farmland where the quake struck about 760 miles west of Beijing. Min
county in Dingxi’s rural south accounted for almost all the deaths and
the worst damage. Urban areas where buildings are more solid were spared
major damage, unlike the traditional mud and brick homes in the
countryside. Tremors were felt in the provincial capital of Lanzhou 110
miles north, and as far away as Xi’an 250 miles to the east. The
government’s earthquake monitoring center said the quake was
magnitude-6.6, while the U.S. Geological Survey said it was 5.9.
Measurements can often vary, especially if different monitoring
equipment is used. The Chinese Red Cross said it was shipping 200 tents,
1,000 sets of household items, and 2,000 jackets to the area. Other
supplies were being shipped in by the army and paramilitary police,
which dispatched around 6,000 personnel and two helicopters to aid in
rescue efforts. But heavy rain is expected later in the week, raising
the need for shelter and increasing the chance of further landslides.
Gansu, with a population of 26 million, is one of China’s more lightly
populated provinces, although the New Jersey-sized area of Dingxi has a
greater concentration of farms in rolling hills terraced for crops and
fruit trees. Dingxi has a population of about 2.7 million.
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