At least 111 people were killed and more than 200 injured after an earthquake hit the remote mountainous regions of northwest China.
The 6.2 magnitude earthquake had its epicenter Monday before midnight in a county of Gansufive kilometers from the border with the province of Qinghai, where victims were also reported. Chinese media reported that a total of nine replicas They were recorded in the same place on Tuesday before dawn.
The Ministry of Emergency Management has sent several rescue teams to the affected areas (2,200 firefighters and forestry brigade agents, who will be joined by army units as support), some of them difficult to access due to being in mountainous terrain. The wave of extreme cold that is shaking the country these days (with -14 degrees average in Gansu) does not help the rescue efforts either.
The number of missing people is currently unknown.. Public broadcaster CCTV reported that there was also serious damage to water and electricity lines, as well as transportation and communications infrastructure. In several videos circulating on Chinese social networks you can see how residents of Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu, ran out of their homes when the first tremors began.
The United States Geological Survey initially reported that a magnitude 5.9 earthquake had caused strong tremors in northeastern China, with extensive damage to infrastructure. The authorities of the Asian country, for their part, later published a slightly higher reading, of magnitude 6.2, indicating that the earthquake hit 10 kilometers deep.