HONG KONG — A series of earthquakes in Gansu Province in northwestern
China set off landslides and building collapses in an impoverished
mountainous region Monday, killing at least 53 people and injuring 337,
according to figures from the Gansu Provincial Seismological Bureau that
were being revised upward by the hour.
The seismological bureau estimated the magnitude of the main earthquake
at 6.6. The United States Geological Survey listed three fairly strong
earthquakes in Gansu Province on Monday morning, with magnitudes of 5.9,
5.6 and 4.7.
Most of the deaths and injuries appeared to have occurred in Minxian
County, although the quakes took place along the border between Minxian
County and Zhangxian County, both in the south of Gansu Province.
At the Lee Yuan Hotel in Minxian County, a woman who identified herself
as Ms. Zhao said that she had been terrified when the building shook and
the ceiling lights swayed. She reached her mother by telephone in their
home village later in the morning and was relieved to learn that she
had survived unscathed.
“She and all our neighbors ran out of their homes right away when they
felt the first quake hit — a lot of the village homes were destroyed by
the earthquakes,” Ms. Zhao said.
The China Earthquake Administration said that it was sending disaster
relief teams to the area. Xinhua reported that the People’s Armed Police
had already sent 500 people, including 120 rescue workers, and that
military units in the area were being prepared to help in relief work.
Communications were disrupted across a wide area, and mudslides were a
continuing problem after the initial earthquakes. The weather service in
nearby Lanzhou, the provincial capital, warned of extremely heavy
rainstorms on Monday.
Initial estimates for the death tolls for earthquakes in western China
have often tended to be far lower than the final totals, because of the
difficulty in reaching communities that may initially be cut off by rock
slides that block roads.
The 2008 earthquake in Sichuan Province, south of Gansu, was initially
reported as having killed a half dozen people, but the final figure
reached 87,000. That earthquake was far more powerful, however, with a
magnitude of 7.9, meaning that the Sichuan earthquake had 100 times the
force of the initial American estimate for the most powerful of the
three earthquakes Monday.
One of the biggest issues after the 2008 earthquake lay in the
substandard construction of many schools and other buildings that
collapsed, and there were allegations that developers had cut corners in
collusion with local officials. Gansu Province is one of the poorest in
China, with many older buildings of simple construction.
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