Earthquake Strikes China; 2 Dead
Pastor Dale Morgan
Earthquake Strikes China; 2 Dead*
By AUDRA ANG
The Associated Press
August 26, 2006; 6:43 AM
BEIJING -- An earthquake jolted southwest China on Friday, killing two
people and destroying homes in an area still recovering from damage
caused by a temblor last month, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
The magnitude-5.1 quake struck Yanjin county in Yunnan province shortly
before 2 p.m., Xinhua said.
"The quake was strongly felt," Cheng Lianyuan, a local official, was
quoted as saying. "Some big rocks from the mountains rolled down and
destroyed many parts of the road."
Provincial officials and earthquake experts have been dispatched to
Yanjin to direct relief efforts, the report said.
Some 400 tents were being sent to the quake zone, the agency said,
citing Yin Liyuan, vice director of the Yunnan Civil Affairs Bureau.
Chen Tieniu, deputy director of Yunnan's seismological bureau, said one
person died in the town of Zonghe after being hit by falling rocks. He
said another 11 people in the town were injured.
Several houses in the nearby town of Dousha also collapsed, he said.
Yanjin county, which lies on an earthquake belt, was still recovering
from a July 22 quake that killed 22 people and injured 106, Xinhua said.
Railroad tracks, roads and thousands of houses _ many built on hillsides
_ were damaged or destroyed. There were at least five aftershocks.
Yanjin, which has a population of 350,000 people, is about 350 miles
from the capital city of Kunming, Xinhua said.
Tremors could be felt in towns 25 miles away and even in Chengdu, the
capital of neighboring Sichuan province, it said.
Zhang Yan, another Yanjin official, said the streets in Dousha "were
littered with tiles and bricks."
"Many residents stayed outdoors for fear of the aftershocks," she was
quoted by Xinhua as saying.