Great
Earthquakes In Diverse Places
Dozens of houses collapse in Double China Earthquakes
AFP
BEIJING, China - Two strong earthquakes shook China's northwest
and southwest regions Tuesday morning
A magnitude-6.0 quake hit China's Xinjiang region about 60 miles
(100 kilometres) from the city of Yining at 8:20 a.m., while the
other temblor struck the area bordering Sichuan and Gansu
provinces at 6 a.m. at a magnitude of 5.5, the U.S. Geological
Survey said.
The strong earthquake in remote northwestern China has destroyed
dozens of houses and damaged many more, but there have been no
reported casualties, government officials and state media said
Tuesday.
Dozens of houses have collapsed and hundreds of homes were damaged
after the 5.4-magnitude quake jolted the border area of Yining and
Gongliu counties in Xinjiang, the local earthquake bureau said on
its official microblog.
The quake, which the US Geological Survey revised down to 5.4 from
an initial reading of 6.0, struck at 8:21am (0021 GMT) around 96
kilometres (59 miles) east of the city of Yining, at a depth of 27
kilometres.
The China Earthquake Administration said the quake was believed to
have caused "major damage" and "strong shaking" was felt in
neighbouring counties, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
A special working group had been dispatched to the area to assess
the damage and coordinate relief efforts, it added.
Xinjiang is a vast region with a population of around 20 million,
of which roughly nine million are Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking
mainly Muslim ethnic minority.
A 5.2-magnitude earthquake struck the region in August, injuring
at least 26 people, three of them critically, and destroying more
than 30 residential buildings.
Earlier on Tuesday, another moderate earthquake measuring 5.5 hit
the Sichuan-Gansu border area in China's southwest, a region
devastated by an 8.0-magnitude quake in 2008.
An official in Qingchuan county in Sichuan province, where the
quake struck at 05:58 am (2158 GMT), told AFP: "It is not very
serious".
Another official said the quake had cracked walls and dislodged
roof tiles in mountain areas but there had been no reports of
casualties or economic losses.