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At Least 257 Killed, 1,000 Injured as Powerful
Quake Shakes China
BEIJING, Feb 24 (AFP) - At least 257 people were
killed and more than 1,000 injured Monday when an
earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale ripped
through a remote area in northwest China, flattening
hundreds of buildings, including schools.
"The casualty figure is now 257. Over 1,000 are
injured," an official at the Xinjiang Seismological
Bureau told AFP. He added that "some schools"
collapsed and caused casualties, but was not able to
provide a figure for the number of children killed.
The Xinhua news agency, quoting officials from the
Kashgar local government, also said 257 were dead
after the quake that rocked an area around Jiashi city
in the western part of Xinjiang region at 10.03 am
(0203 GMT).
Beijing Seismological Bureau official Li Qianghua
confirmed the high death toll, blaming the poor
quality of structures in the quake-plagued area.
Xinhua said that more than 1,000 buildings had
collapsed in one village in Bachu County.
The tremor hit 40 kilometers (24 miles) east of Jiashi
city, in a county of the same name, near the Xinjiang
border with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, local officials
said. Other areas shaken by strong tremors included
Artux County, Markit County and Kashi city. Doctors
and the local army rushed to the scene, officials in
the area said.
Beijing's Ministry of Civil Affairs announced it had
sent a team led by vice minister Yang Yan Yin to "guide
the local government in the rescue effort." A shipment
of tents, quilts and other emergency supplies was also
being hurriedly collected and sent off, Xinhua added.
The duty doctor at the area's largest hospital, the
First People's Hospital of Kashgar, told AFP all
hospitals in the area had sent medical personnel and
were fully staffed, ready to accept the injured.
"The local health department has ordered all the
hospitals to be prepared to receive the injured," said
the doctor who did not want to be named. "All the
doctors will be on duty this evening. Every hospital
has sent emergency vehicles and their best doctors to
the site. "We will take as many of the injured as we
can."
An official at the Jiashi county government said
weather was not expected to hamper rescue efforts.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell, in China for talks
on Iraq and North Korea, sent his condolences to the
victims' families.
"I was sorry to learn, just in the last few minutes,
of the earthquake in western China and the loss of
life," he said before a meeting with Chinese President
Jiang Zemin.
"I want to express my regrets to the Chinese people."
Jiang, clearly uninformed, said: "I was told the
earthquake was not very serious."
Jiashi, located about 55 kilometers (34 miles) east of
the historic oasis city of Kashgar, is mostly
populated by members of the Muslim Uighur minority who
refer to the city as Payzawat.
The city and the surrounding area have lived through a
number of strong, fatal earthquakes. Twenty-four
people were reported killed in March 1996 when a quake
measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale hit an area about
120 kilometers (75 miles) north of Jiashi.
On January 21, 1997, an earthquake measuring 6.4 on
the Richter scale struck closer to Jiashi, killing at
least 12. In April of the same year, a 6.6-degree
earthquake occured, killing another nine. None came
close to matching China's worst ever earthquake, which
killed 242,000 people and injured 164,000 on July 28,
1976. The deadly quake wiped the city of Tangshan in
northeast China off the map in just seconds.
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