Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
IP addresses are NOT logged in this forum so there's no point asking. Please note that this forum is full of homophobes, racists, lunatics, schizophrenics & absolute nut jobs with a smattering of geniuses, Chinese chauvinists, Moderate Muslims and last but not least a couple of "know-it-alls" constantly sprouting their dubious wisdom. If you believe that content generated by unsavory characters might cause you offense PLEASE LEAVE NOW! Sammyboy Admin and Staff are not responsible for your hurt feelings should you choose to read any of the content here. The OTHER forum is HERE so please stop asking.
People stand outside their homes after a 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit Dingxi, Gansu province, July 22, 2013. The earthquake in China's western Gansu province killed 11 people and seriously injured another 81, state media said on Monday. REUTERS/China Daily
BEIJING | Mon Jul 22, 2013 2:07am EDT
(Reuters) - A 6.6 magnitude earthquake in China's western Gansu province killed 22 people and seriously injured hundreds on Monday, state media said, adding that many homes in affected areas had 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.
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 and communications were cut off in 13 towns in Zhangxian County, Xinhua said.
A second 5.6 earthquake struck the same region about 90 minutes after the first, Xinhua said, the most significant of several aftershocks.
The United States Geological Survey said the first quake had a magnitude of 5.9.
Gansu abuts Sichuan province, where a 6.6 quake in April killed 164 people and injured more than 6,700, China's worst quake in three years.
That quake hit close to where a devastating 7.9 temblor killed some 70,000 people in May 2008.
(Reporting by Michael Martina and Megha Rajagopalan; Editing by Jonathan Standing and Paul Tait)
China quake death toll more than doubles to 54, hundreds hurt
People stand outside their homes after a 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit Dingxi, Gansu province, July 22, 2013. The earthquake in China's western Gansu province killed 11 people and seriously injured another 81, state media said on Monday. REUTERS-China Daily
(Reuters) - The death toll from a 6.6 magnitude earthquake in China's western Gansu province on Monday 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 (7.45 p.m. ET 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.
A school building in Minxian county was also damaged, a teacher in the area said, although he said he didn't believe any students were injured because they were away on summer holidays.
Heavy rain is also forecast for the areas hit by the quake, which officials fear would compound the damage by causing more landslides and flooding.
A second 5.6 earthquake struck the same region about 90 minutes after the first, Xinhua said, the most significant of several aftershocks. The United States Geological Survey said the first quake had a magnitude of 5.9.
Gansu abuts Sichuan province, where a 6.6 quake in April killed 164 people and injured more than 6,700, China's worst quake in three years.
That quake hit close to where a devastating 7.9 temblor killed some 70,000 people in May 2008.
Among those killed in the 2008 quake were thousands of children, raising suspicions that the schools that had collapsed on them had been poorly constructed, in part due to corruption.
(Additional reporting by Michael Martina, Ben Blanchard and the Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Paul Tait)
At least 75 dead as earthquake strikes western China
At least 75 people were killed and more than 400 injured after a pair of earthquakes shook one of China's poorest regions.
Injured residents rest at a hospital after the earthquake hit Minxian county in northwest China's Gansu province Photo: AP
agencies
1:58PM BST 22 Jul 2013
The earthquakes, of magnitude 5.9 and 5.6, struck early on Monday morning near Dingxi, a city of around three million people spread over an area twice the size of Greater London in the western province of Gansu.
Residents gather at a makeshift hospital (AP)
"More than 21,000 buildings were severely damaged and more than 1,200 have collapsed," an official at the provincial earthquake bureau said, adding that 371 aftershocks had been recorded.
Normally a dry and mountainous area, the epicentre of the quake has been hit with weeks of heavy rain and flooding and the tremors set of a series of calamitous landslides, burying local houses.
Dingxi's local economy is built on farming yams, apricots and walnuts, and on the harvesting of herbs used in Chinese medicine, but the average income in the area is less than £1,200 a year and many of the affected houses were crudely built from m&d bricks and corrugated steel, leaving them vulnerable to the impact.
"The rescue work is hard because the building has been completely buried," said one survivor to China Central Television, standing next to a house in which 12 people had been buried.
Residents receive medical treatment at a makeshift hospital in earthquake hit Minxian county in northwest China's Gansu province (AP)
More than 2,000 soldiers from the People's Liberation Army quickly reached the scene and fanned out over the area to mount a rescue operation. After a series of deadly quakes in recent years, China is perhaps the best equipped country in the world for such operations.
"We are rushing to the scene," said Tang Xiaoming, the deputy mayor of Dingxi to CCTV. "The damage to houses made from earth bricks has been severe and many are now unusable," he added, cautioning that many victims were still buried.
Rescuers search for survivors in the ruins of a damaged house in Hetuo township in Dingxi, northwest China's Gansu province (AFP/Getty Images)
Communications and electricity were cut to the two worst affected areas.
Heavy rain is expected in the area later in the week, said a spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross Societies, adding that 200 tents, 2,000 warm jackets and more than 1,000 kits containing basic household items had been dispatched from the central city of Xi'an.
China's worst disaster in recent years was a 7.9-magnitude earthquake that struck the south western province of Sichuan in 2008, leaving 90,000 people dead or missing.
