BEIJING (Reuters) – The death toll from a 6.6 magnitude earthquake in China’s western Gansu province yesterday more than doubled to 54 people, the municipal government said, with hundreds injured as many homes in affected areas collapsed.
The quake hit Minxian and Zhangxian counties, about 170 km (105 miles) southeast of the provincial capital of Lanzhou, at 7.45 on Monday morning (2345 GMT Sunday), the official Xinhua news agency said.
It put the number of people seriously injured at 296. Earlier reports by the official Xinhua news agency said 22 people had died.
Eight towns in the remote, mountainous area sustained serious damage in the quake and subsequent flooding and mudslides, state media said.
There were also power outages, while cell phone and Internet coverage was disrupted, residents and state media reported. The Red Cross Society of China said it had sent relief supplies to the affected areas, including jackets and tents.
“Many have been injured by collapsed houses,” said a Minxian county doctor surnamed Du. “Many villagers have gone to local hospitals along the roads.”
Photos posted on Chinese social media showed roads on the sides of riverbanks that had subsided and farmhouses reduced to piles of red bricks.
About 380 buildings had collapsed and 5,600 sustained damaged in Zhangxian county, the Dingxi municipal government said in a microblog post.
