About 400 dead, 10,000 injured in 7.1-magnitude quake in China's Qinghai

YUSHU, Qinghai, April 14, 2010 (Xinhua) --

About 400 people have died and 10,000 others were injured after a 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit northwest China's Qinghai Province early on Wednesday, local authorities said.

Many people are still buried under the debris of collapsed houses in the Gyegu Town near the epicenter in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu in southern Qinghai, said Huang Limin, deputy secretary-general of the prefecture government.

The strong quake and a string of aftershocks, with the biggest one being 6.3 magnitude, have toppled houses, temples, gas stations and electric poles, triggered landslides, damaged roads, cut power supplies and disrupted telecommunications. A reservoir was also cracked, where workers are trying to prevent the outflow of water.

Gyegu, also known as Jiegu, is the seat of the Yushu prefecture government. The town has a population of about 100,000, including permanent residents and migrant people.

"I can see injured people everywhere. The biggest problem now is that we lack tents, we lack medical equipment, medicine and medical workers," said Zhuohuaxia, a publicity official in Yushu.

More than 85 percent of the houses in Gyegu, almost all made of wood and earthen walls, had collapsed, he said.

President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have ordered local authorities to go all out to save the disaster-stricken people.

The State Council, or Cabinet, has set up a quake-relief headquarters, with Vice Premier Hui Liangyu as the head, to take care of disaster relief, epidemic prevention, seismic monitoring and public security.

Hui has arrived at the quake-hit region to oversee the rescue and relief operation.

About 700 soldiers are now struggling to clear away the rubble and rescue the buried people, a spokesman with the Qinghai Provincial Emergency Office said.

More than 5,000 additional rescuers, including soldiers and medical workers, have been dispatched to the quake-hit region, according to a news conference held by the Qinghai provincial government.

The China Earthquake Administration, the Red Cross Society of China, and authorities in other provincial-level regions, including Gansu, Sichuan, Tibet, Beijing and Guangdong, have also dispatched rescuers to Yushu.

Tents, cotton-padded clothes, quilts, food, medicine, bulldozers, excavators, cranes and dynamotors are being rushed to the region from across the country.

"Our top priority is to save students. Schools are always places that have many people," said Kang Zifu, an army officer in the rescue operation in Gyegu.

The quake also killed five people and injured one in the Shiqu County, which neighbors Yushu, in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Garze in Sichuan Province, local authorities said.

Lying on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Yushu has an altitude of above 4,000 meters.

The Qinghai Provincial Observatory forecast Wednesday that Yushu would see strong winds and sleet in the coming days, which would hamper rescue efforts.

Samdrup Gyatso, 17, who ran a shop in his two-story house in Gyegu, lost his relatives in the earthquake.

"There are 10 people in my family and only four of us escaped. One of my relatives died. All the others are buried under the rubble," he said.

Many local residents were seen Wednesday afternoon taking cars, mini-vans and tractors to flee the town, and many buses and privately-owned cars were seen carrying injured people on the highway from Yushu to Xining, the provincial capital.

Three tents have been set up in the government compound of the Yushu prefecture, which accommodated about 60 people.

"The streets in Gyegu are thronged with panic, injured people, with many bleeding from the head," Zhuohuaxia said.

"Many students are buried under the debris due to building collapse at a vocational school," he said.

"A large crack appears in the wall of the Yushu Hotel, and part of a government office building also collapsed," he said.

The epicenter is at the Rima Village in the Shanglaxiu Township, about 50 km west of Gyegu and about 800 km away from Xining.

"The epicenter is a pasturing area and sparsely-populated. I think the quake would not cause casualties as heavy as those in Gyegu," Zhuohuaxia said.

"The houses here are almost all made of wood and earthen walls, which collapsed when the quake happened," said Karsum Nyima, deputy director of the News Department of the Yushu TV Station.

"I also saw the roof of a Buddhist pagoda in a park collapsed," he said.

Zhu Liang, a driver at the Yushu prefecture government, said he saw half of the buildings in the Yushu Vocational School had collapsed.

"I do not know how many students have died," said Zhu, who is now in the rescue operation.

"Students just got up and were yet to go to class when the quake happened. I recovered several bodies from the debris and found they were fully dressed," he said.

"Buildings in our school were all toppled, and five pupils have died," said a teacher surnamed Chang at the Yushu Primary School, a boarding school with about 1,000 students.

"Morning sessions did not begin when the quake happened. Some pupils ran out of dorms alive, and those who had not escaped in time were buried," Chang said.

Although Yushu is a sparsely-populated region, experts said the quake is very likely to cause "heavy" casualties.

"The strong quake has a shallow depth and the epicenter is close to the prefecture seat," said Sun Shihong, a research fellow with the China Earthquake Networks Center in Beijing.

"It is estimated there will be heavy casualties, as the quake occurred in the early morning and most of the local residents were yet to get up," he said.

"In addition, according to the building structure and damages, a large number of people will be injured," he added.

The epicenter is about 200 km away from the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, that was opened in July 2006 and has linked Tibet with the rest of the country by train for the first time.

"The railway line does not go through Yushu, so it is unlikely to be affected by the quake," said Lin Zhigang, of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway Company.

The quake was strongly felt in the neighboring Qamdo Prefecture and other regions in Tibet.

"But no casualties or major damages have been reported so far. We are investigating the losses," said Zhu Quan, director of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Seismological Bureau.

The bureau has dispatched two emergency team made up of 80 professional rescuers to Yushu, Zhu said.

The quake was also felt in parts of the neighboring Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Garze in Sichuan Province.

"In addition to five deaths, some houses were damaged or toppled, and some highways were disrupted," said Guo Jin, director of the Garze Bureau of Earthquake and Disaster Relief.

RESCUE

The National Development and Reform Commission has allocated 50 million yuan (7.4 million U.S. dollars) as a special fund for repairing the damaged facilities of water, power, roads and telecommunications in Yushu

The China Earthquake Administration has sent 60 rescuers and 30 medical workers to the quake-hit region.

The China Eastern Airlines has arranged two aircraft for transporting rescuers and relief supplies.

The Qinghai Provincial Department of Civil Affairs has allocated 5,000 tents to the region.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has allocated 5,000 tents, 50,000 cotton-padded clothes and 50,000 quilts to the region.

The Red Cross Society of China has dispatched a relief team to Yushu and allocated 100,000 yuan, 500 tents, 1,000 cotton-padded clothes and 1,000 quilts as relief supplies.

In addition, authorities in Beijing have donated 10 million yuan to Yushu and dispatched an 80-member medical team there. They also sent 10,000 tents, 20,000 beds and 100,000 quilts there.

"We have to mainly rely on our hands to clear away the debris as we have no large excavating machines," said Shi Huajie, an army police officer in the rescue operation.

"We have no medical equipment, either," he said.

Wu Yong, commander of the Yushu Military Area Command of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, said the death toll "may rise further as lots of houses collapsed."

"We have been putting up tents and transporting oxygen to prepare for treating the injured," he said.

"But roads leading to the airport have been damaged, hampering the rescue efforts," he said.

"In addition, frequent aftershocks and strong winds make the rescue operation more difficult," he added.

The quake struck the Yushu County in the Yushu prefecture at 7:49 a.m. with a depth of about 33 km. The epicenter is calculated to be 33.1 north and 96.7 east, the China Earthquake Networks Center reported.

At least 18 aftershocks have been reported so far, with the biggest being 6.3 magnitude about an hour and 36 minutes later.

"Aftershocks above 6 magnitude are still likely to happen in the coming several days," warned Liu Jie, of the China Earthquake Networks Center.

Earlier at 5:39 a.m. Wednesday, a 4.7-magnitude quake jolted the county with a depth of about 6 km, the center reported.

"The 4.7-magnitude quake only lasted about three seconds, so many people did not care about it much. Only a small number of vigilant people got up," said local resident Wang Shuguang.

Yushu is a quake-prone region.

An 8.0-magnitude quake centered in Wenchuan County in Sichuan on May 12, 2008 left 87,000 people dead or missing.

In terms of the intensity and scope of destruction, the Wenchuan quake is believed to have surpassed the 7.8-magnitude quake in 1976 in Tangshan, northern Hebei Province, which claimed more than 240,000 lives.

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