Deadly tremor rocks China’s Sichuan city in lockdown
At least 65 people have been killed after a 6.6 magnitude earthquake hit southwestern China, state media said.
The quake struck at 13:00 local time (05:00 GMT) on Monday in Sichuan province at a depth of 10km (6 miles).
The impact severed telecommunications lines and triggered mountain landslides that caused “serious damage”, local media reports say.
Some 21 million people in Sichuan’s capital Chengdu were last week ordered to stay at home because of Covid rules.
The epicenter of the quake was Luding, a town in a remote mountain region located about 226km southwest of Chengdu, according to the China Earthquake Networks Centre.
State broadcaster said 17 people died in the city of Ya’an, while 29 deaths were reported in the neighboring prefecture of Ganzi.
Another 16 people were missing and 50 were injured.
Tremors shook buildings in Chengdu and the neighboring mega-city of Chongqing, leaving roads blocked and cutting communication lines in areas home to more than 10,000 residents.
The shocks also forced some power stations to shut down in the areas of Garze and Ya’an.
More than 500 rescue personnel have been despatched to the epicenter, while workers labored to clear roadblocks caused by landslides.
Chengdu residents reported seeing people running out of their high-rise apartments in a panic after receiving earthquake alerts on their phones.
Agencies