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According to state media, a 6.6-magnitude earthquake that slammed southwestern China on Monday claimed the lives of at least seven people. According to state broadcaster CCTV, preliminary investigations revealed that several towns in Sichuan province had suffered “severe damage to homes owing to mountain landslides,” and that telecommunication cables had been cut off in other places. The quake hit roughly 43 kilometers (26 miles) southeast of the metropolis of Kangding in Sichuan province at a depth of ten km, the USGS said. There were no casualties that were immediately reported. Residents of the adjacent megacity of Chongqing and the provincial capital Chengdu reported feeling tremors to AFP.
A citizen of Chengdu with the last name Chen said, “I felt it fairly powerfully.” Some of my ground-floor neighbours reported they could plainly feel it.
The quake, according to a Chongqing resident, was “very obvious” and rocked the furniture and lights in his fifth-floor flat.
He admitted to being rather terrified but said, “It didn’t seem to bother people here.” (AFP)
According to official broadcaster CGTN, more than 500 rescue workers have been sent to the epicentre, and “many aftershocks have been registered in adjacent locations.”
Less than an hour after the original earthquake, a minor Magnitude 4.6 tremor struck eastern Tibet, according to the USGS.
In China, particularly in its seismically active southwest, earthquakes occur often.
Tens of thousands of people died and there was extensive damage as a result of an 8.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Sichuan’s Wenchuan county in 2008.
Following two earthquakes that occurred in southwestern China in June, at least four people died and numerous others were hurt.
On that occasion, a shallow quake with a magnitude of 6.1 struck a sparsely inhabited region around 100 kilometres west of Chengdu, a city with a 21 million-person population.
Three minutes later, a second quake with a magnitude of 4.5 struck in the same county, causing fatalities and injuries.
On Sunday, Chengdu continued to be under a virus lockdown as it battled a Covid flare-up with hundreds of cases.
The area has also seen an exceptionally harsh summer, with Chongqing’s waterways significantly drying up as a result of a heat wave that set records.
