(TibetanReview.net, Dec25’23) – The death toll in Qinghai Province from the 6.2-magnitude earthquake which hit neighbouring Gansu province at 11:59 pm on Dec 18 night has risen to 32 as of 11 pm Dec 24, according to China’s official Xinhua news agency Dec 25. Two others are still missing.
The quake disaster has killed a total of 149 in the epicentre area which straddles the two provinces and which is populated on both sides mainly by Hui Chinese Muslims.
In Gansu, which bore the brunt of the quake’s wrath, more than 200,000 homes were wrecked and 15,000 on the brink of collapse, reported Reuters Dec 25, citing Chinese state media. Displacing 145,000 people, the powerful tremors have killed 117 people in the province as of Dec. 22, with 781 wounded.
In Qinghai the disaster had injured 198 people.
The maximum damage from the earthquake has occurred at the earthquake’s epicentre in Gansu’s Jishishan county and in the neighbouring city of Haidong (Tibetan: Tsoshar) in Qinghai.
Local authorities have attributed the severity of the damage to the shallowness of the quake.
Earthquakes are common in provinces on the northeastern boundary of the tectonically active Tibetan Plateau, comprising most of Tibet Autonomous Region, Qinghai, Gansu, parts of Xinjiang and the rugged highlands in the west of Sichuan, the report noted.