At least forty-six dead, roads blocked and homes “seriously damaged” : A powerful earthquake hit a mountainous area in southwestern China on Monday, September 5, mobilizing thousands of rescuers, state media said.
The tremor was recorded at 12:52 p.m. local time (6:52 a.m. Paris time) in Sichuan province, said the United States Institute of Geological Studies (USGS) – world reference body for earthquakes. The epicenter is 39 kilometers from Luding district, according to Chinese public television CCTV, in an area that is not very densely populated.
The latest provisional toll, revised upwards in the evening, now reports at least forty-six dead, according to national television, which also mentions sixteen missing and fifty injured. The previous report reported “more than thirty dead”.
The tremor was also felt some 200 kilometers from the epicenter, in the provincial capital, Chengdu, whose twenty-one million inhabitants are currently confined to their homes due to an outbreak of Covid-19.
Damaged houses
Authorities did not report any damage in the provincial capital. Chengdu had extended the confinement of its inhabitants on Sunday after the discovery in recent days of hundreds of new positive cases of the coronavirus.
Video released by the agency showed chandeliers swinging from the ceiling and sections of concrete buildings falling to the ground. CCTV for its part showed images of firefighters in orange outfits clearing fallen rocks on a road and of a blue sedan with its windshield smashed by a huge rock.
Faced with a toll that could grow even heavier, Chinese President Xi Jinping called “to do everything to help people affected by the disaster and minimize human losses”reported the new China agency.
Close to the epicenter, the authorities of the city of Ya’an speak of “damage at various levels” in the affected areas. “Houses were seriously damaged” et “telecommunications have been cut off” in some places near the epicenter, said the neighboring prefecture of Garze, where twenty-nine victims were counted.
More than 1,000 soldiers and army officers are mobilized, according to the Sichuan Seismological Bureau, which released images of its engineers, equipped with laptops, going to the scene. According to CCTV, the local authorities have also dispatched several thousand rescuers, firefighters, doctors or members of the people’s armed police – gendarmes in charge of public security, mobilized during disasters.
Blankets and folding beds
Authorities have transported thousands of tents, blankets and folding beds to the affected areas to help people whose homes have been damaged, CCTV reported.
A video released by the China Seismic Network Center shows boulders rolling down a hill in Luding Township, kicking up clouds of dust, and phone lines flickering from the tremors. The center reported several aftershocks of lesser intensity after the first earthquake.
Sichuan, very mountainous, is known worldwide for its reserves of giant pandas. The province is regularly hit by earthquakes. In June, a 6.1 magnitude earthquake had already shaken this region, killing at least four people and injuring dozens. In May 2008, a very powerful earthquake, of magnitude 7.9, left 87,000 dead or missing in Sichuan. The disaster was a national shock.