(TibetanReview.net, Dec19’23) – A magnitude-6.2 earthquake which rocked an ethnic county in China’s Gansu Province around midnight on Dec 18 has killed at least 118 people as of Dec 19 morning, including 13 in neighbouring Qinghai province, reported China’s official Xinhua news agency.
In Qinghai, the quake has left 182 people injured and 20 missing, with rescue efforts continuing, Wang Wen, vice mayor of Haidong (Tibetan: Tsoshar) City, Qinghai, has said at a press conference held by the earthquake relief headquarters in Haidong.
The epicentre of the earthquake was stated to be in Gansu, located just 5 km away from the boundary between the two provinces. Within 50 km of the epicentre, there are 22 townships in Qinghai, the report said.
China Earthquake Networks Centre has said the quake jolted at 11:59 pm Dec 18 and had a focal depth of 10 km. The epicentre is about 8 km from the county seat of Jishishan Bao’an, Dongxiang, Salar Autonomous County in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu. As of 10 am Dec 19, the earthquake had claimed 105 lives in Gansu, the report said.
The tremor was stated to have been also felt strongly in the cities of Xining and Haidong in Qinghai, where some houses collapsed and cracked.
The railway authority has suspended passenger and cargo trains passing through the quake zone and ordered a safety check of railway tracks.
Earthquakes are common in the area, which lie on the eastern boundary of the Tibetan plateau, a tectonically active area. The deadliest quake in the area in recent decades occurred in 2008 when a magnitude-8.0 temblor struck Sichuan, killing nearly 70,000 people.
