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China news tagged with: earthquake (17)

• Quake in China’s Sichuan Kills One, Damages Homes

  

  One person was killed and thousands of homes were damaged in an earthquake that struck Sichuan on Sunday. From Reuters:

  More than 100 houses collapsed in the quake, which had an epicenter about midway between Chongqing and Chengdu.

  The United States Geological Survey recorded the earthquake as having a magnitude of 5.2.

  The casualties were reported in three villages of Moxi town, near Suining City in eastern Sichuan, according to the Sichuan Provincial Earthquake Administration.

  Tongnan County, neighboring Suining, reported that 4,700 homes were damaged, with economic losses of at least 30 million yuan (about $4.5 million), Xinhua said.

  
  According to a Xinhua report, this quake was not an aftershock of the massive temblor that struck Sichuan in May 2008:

  Experts were still investigating the cause of the 5-magnitude quake, he said.

  “We are sure this quake is not an aftershock because of change in geological structure and environment caused by the devastating quake in May 2008, which left about 87,000 people dead or missing,” Lu said.

  » Read more
  • January 31, 2010 10:12 PM

• Earthquake in China Kills 7 People

  

  AP reports:

  Landslides triggered by a small earthquake in southern China killed at least seven people and left one person missing over the weekend, local earthquake officials said Monday.

  The 3.4-magnitude earthquake struck Sunday afternoon. It was centered in Guizhou province, 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of the capital Guiyang, according to a report from the Guizhou Earthquake Bureau.

  The earthquake triggered two landslides in separate locations, burying and killing at least seven people instantly with large boulders that tumbled down the mountain, said Tian Xiang, a bureau spokesman.

  » Read more
  • January 18, 2010 12:21 AM

• Thousands Displaced by Quake in Xinjiang

  

  Reuters reports on an earthquake measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale that struck near the Kazakh border in China’s Xinjiang province, leaving thousands homeless.

  The earthquake, which measured 5.0 on the Richter scale, hit an area inhabited by the Xibe people, a community originally from Manchuria that established a frontier garrison in Xinjiang during the Qing dynasty.

  It destroyed nearly 200 homes and damaged nearly 3,000 buildings on Sunday morning. No casualties have been reported so far.

  » Read more
  • January 26, 2009 4:07 PM

• Suicide Sparks Concern for Officials’ Mental Health in Quake Zone

  

  From Xinhua:

  Authorities in the southwest China May 12 quake zone are seeking ways to improve the mental health of their staff after a 40-year-old senior official of Beichuan County, one of the worst-hit areas, committed suicide.

  Dong Yufei, the county agriculture commission head and disaster relief office director, hanged himself in a temporary office on Oct. 3.

  Dong, who lost his 12-year-old son and other relatives in the quake, left a letter that read: “I feel too much pressure from life and work everyday. I cannot hold on any further. And I just want a good rest.”

  From Shanghai Daily:

  A Sichuan agriculture official who was promoted for his outstanding work after the May earthquake has taken his own life.

  Dong Yufei, 40, who was promoted to director of Agriculture Office of Beichuan County, one of the areas worst-hit by the earthquake in Sichuan Province, committed suicide on October 3, the China News Service reported today.

  Dong, who had not taken a day off work since the disaster, lost his only child and several other relatives in the quake that killed nearly 70,000 people nationwide.

  South China Morning Post also reports that there has been much debate about “how the authorities should help grass-roots officials in the quake zone”.

  » Read more
  • October 12, 2008 5:46 PM

• Three Killed, 100 Hurt in China Earthquake

  

  A 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck Yingjiang County in Yunnan province on Friday, killing three, wounding 100 and displacing 3,400. From CNN:

  » Read more
  • August 22, 2008 9:46 PM

• Powerful Aftershocks Hit China Quake Area, 1 Dead

  

  From Reuters：

  At least three powerful aftershocks hit southwest China’s quake area on Thursday, killing one elderly person and injuring more than a dozen, the official Xinhua news agency said.

  More than 69,000 people have been confirmed dead and some 18,000 are still listed as missing over two months after a 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit the mountainous province of Sichuan on May 12, the deadliest in the country since 1976.

  A 5.6-magnitude aftershock struck Qingchuan county in northeastern Sichuan in the early hours of Thursday, killing a 60-year-old, Xinhua said.

  » Read more
  • July 24, 2008 4:29 AM

• Foreign Correspondents Blog the Quake

  

  Here are a few thoughts on the recent Wenchuan earthquake from the blogs of various foreign correspondents.

  Bill Powell at Time magazine’s China blog wonders if the earthquake caused any damage to the Three Gorges Dam located 660 kilomters east of Chengdu.

  Melinda Liu, blogging for Newsweek, addressees how the earthquake might be interpreted by superstitious Chinese:

  Many Asians see major calamities as examples of “divine intervention” — such as the recent Burmese cyclone which many citizens there interpreted as karmic payback for the military junta’s bloody crackdown on monk-led protests back in September. My piece mentioned China’s traumatic July 1976 Tangshan earthquake, in which up to 600,000 died.

  The Tangshan quake, which took place in July of that year, was widely perceived as a portent that the ailing dictator Mao Zedong would die (he did in September) and that the Maoist era of isolationist rule would end (it did beginning in October, when the ultra-leftist “Gang of Four” was toppled). So many big political events took place in 1976 that Chinese called it the “year of curses.” With all the drama over China’s Olympic torch relay, and anticipation growing over the August Games, authorities no doubt hope today’s earthquake will prove to be just a seismological blip.

  Richard Spencer, of the Telegraph, raises a similar point:

  A friend points out that this may be a test of residual feudal superstition in China. The Tangshan earthquake in 1976 was said to be an omen of Mao’s death two months later. This would be a bad year for a repeat, though there are no indications this is anything like on that scale.

  Spencer writes that he’s on his way to Chongqing, the closest he could get to Chengdu by plane. Keep checking his blog for updates.

  James Fallows, of the Atlantic, has been observing how the quake is being covered on Chinese state television:

  … the CCTV-1 news channel is having all-out coverage of the earthquake in Sichuan province. Brief cultural notes:

  - The coverage included a long segment of premier Wen Jiabao reading a speech about his deep concern for the people of Sichuan, from aboard an airplane en route to the disaster scene. Background: after the country was paralyzed by unexpected snow storms in February, the leadership was criticized for a Katrina-like slowness in dealing with the problem. Prominent coverage now of the main officials responding immediately to this disaster.

  - News channels from Taiwan, which we are watching in alternation with the mainland coverage on CCTV, have extensive video footage from Chengdu, estimates of casualties, etc. So far no on-scene video footage that I’ve seen on CCTV-1, and no casualty figures. (The state news agency, Xinhua, is saying that 7600 people, or more, may have died.) Channel-surfing, we see that the German, Japanese, and Korean networks are also running Chengdu footage. It could have been on CCTV when I wasn’t watching, but it’s certainly not featured. CCTV is mainly running telephone interviews with correspondents in Sichuan and talking-head analyses in the studio. Possible background: controlling coverage within China until being sure exactly how the story should be presented. (Update: just saw a 20-second video clip from Chengdu on CCTV.)

  » Read more
  • May 12, 2008 3:58 PM

• Strong Earthquake Hits Southwest China (Updated)

  

  [This post will be updated throughout the day]
  
  UPDATE (May 13): The latest from AP:

  Bodies covered with sheets lined the streets Tuesday as rescue workers dug through schools and homes turned into rubble by China’s worst earthquake in three decades in a search for more victims. The official death toll rose to nearly 12,000, and thousands remained missing.

  But hope that many survivors would be found was slim. Buildings were knocked down on every block in some cities, and corpses were laid out in the street and in schoolyards.

  Only 58 people were extricated from demolished buildings across the quake area so far, China Seismological Bureau spokesman Zhang Hongwei told the official Xinhua.

  From AP:

  One of the worst earthquakes to hit China in three decades killed nearly 9,000 people Monday, trapped about 900 students under the rubble of their school and caused a toxic chemical leak, state media reported.

  The 7.9-magnitude earthquake devastated a hilly region of small cities and towns in central China. The official Xinhua News Agency said 8,533 people died in Sichuan province and more than 200 others were killed in three other provinces and the mega-city of Chongqing.

  Wikipedia’s special link is here. Minute-by-minute updates are posted via Sina (in Chinese) here.

  Here is the report “China Sends Troops to Sichuan as Quake Kills 10,000 ” on Bloomberg.com:

  China is deploying about 50,000 soldiers to Sichuan province after the nation’s strongest earthquake in 58 years killed almost 10,000 people and buried buildings in landslides.

  “The death toll and damage are more serious than we expected and we need more people here to help,” Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said early today at disaster relief headquarters in Dujiangyan, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the epicenter, in comments broadcast on state television.

  - Reports have said 900 school students were buried alive at Juyuan Middle School in Chongqing, according to The Australian:

  The 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck in the middle of the afternoon – when classes and offices were full. Xinhua News Agency said at least four ninth-grade students were killed when the building collapsed.

  The agency said 50 of the 900 trapped students had been killed. Photographs showed cranes trying to move rubble from the ruins of the school in Juyuan, about 100km from the epicentre in Wenchuan county in Sichuan province.

  Xinhua said its reporters saw buried teenagers struggling to break loose from under the rubble of the three-storey school, “while others were crying out for help”.

  - Observers are also making inevitable comparisons to the 1976 Tangshan earthquake and the perceived connections between natural disasters and the “mandate of heaven” in Chinese history. From The Times:

  At a magnitude of 7.8 the ‘76 quake was enormous, causing widespread damage even in the Chinese capital, where dozens also died. That tremor triggered a furore of rumours that it was an omen of future disaster. Less than two months later Chairman Mao Zedong was dead.

  Today’s disaster near the town of Wenchuan in China’s southwest today also measured 7.8 in magnitude.

  -On relief efforts, read “China moves quickly in quake zone” from the Christian Science Monitor. The U.S. and Japan have offered aid.

  - Read numerous reports about Twitter’s role in breaking the news of the quake, here, here and here. See also a report from the Telegraph: “China earthquake brings out citizen journalists.”

  - NPR reporters are in Chengdu preparing for a week of special reports from the region. Listen to reporting by Melissa Block that is interrupted as the earthquake strikes, and read the reporters’ blog from Chengdu.

  - See images and video of the devastation here.

  » Read more
  • May 12, 2008 12:58 AM

• Strong Quake Hits Western China

  

  From BBC News :

  A 7.2-magnitude earthquake has struck in Xinjiang province in north-west China.

  The quake occurred at 0633 local time on Friday (2233 GMT on Thursday), according to the US Geological Survey.

  The epicentre was about 140 miles (225km) south-east of Hotan city, near Yutian county, the US agency said.

  See also: Strong earthquake, aftershocks hit China’s far west from China National News.

  » Read more
  • March 21, 2008 9:00 AM

• China Says 180,000 Evacuated after Earthquake – Reuters

  

  From Reuters:

  
  Around 180,000 people have been evacuated from their homes in China’s southwest, following a powerful earthquake that killed at least three and injured 313, the official Xinhua agency said on Monday.

  It was followed by hundreds of aftershocks and experts say more could follow. Overall, more than half a million people were affected and direct economic losses are estimated at around 2.5 billion yuan ($326.9 million).[Full Text]

  See also the first reports of the earthquake, the China Daily article about displaced victims, and the Shanghai Daily article on aid.

  » Read more
  • June 4, 2007 10:48 AM

• Two Die, 200 Hurt as Quake Hits China Tea City – Reuters

  

  From Reuters, via The Star Online:

  A strong earthquake hit a tea-making city in southwest China early on Sunday, killing at least two people, injuring 200, causing houses to collapse and damaging roads, Xinhua news agency and a local official said.

  The earthquake shook the city of Pu’er and the surrounding area in mountainous Yunnan province in the early morning. There have since been 55 aftershocks. Tremors were felt 200 km away to the north and south, Xinhua said.

  Power was cut to the city and the only communications possible were by cell phone, a local official said. [Full Text]

  » Read more
  • June 2, 2007 10:22 PM

• China Internet Still Broken – Andrew Lih

  

  From AsiaPundit blog:

  Confirming AsiaPundit’s own experience in Shanghai, Andrew Lih reports from Beijing that Mainland China’s international internet access is still exceptionally bad.:

  International access to the Internet from Beijing has been poor since January 1, and seems to have gotten worse, likely due to folks returning from vacation and swamping existing links. Some friends mentioned that access to their corporate VPNs routed over the public Internet were virtually unusable from Beijing.

  Google Mail is inaccessible half the time, or runs too slow to function. Skype is largely unusable. Downloading podcasts takes half a dozen tries through Apple iTunes, requiring a few different VPNs and SSH tunnels. I feel like I’m in the Internet Gulag.

  Performance tends to be better in the early morning. I got a few hours of zippy performance from 4:30 am on, but by 7:00 am, the net was slowing again. [Full Text]

  » Read more
  • January 12, 2007 8:15 AM

• Quake cable damage ‘more serious than estimated’ – Dan Washburn

  

  From Shanghaiist:

  Did you see this story from yesterday? Let the good times roll!

  Telecommunication operators and Internet users need to wait longer to get normal access as the authority said Tuesday the damage on undersea cables caused by earthquake last month is more serious than previous estimated.

  According to the latest estimation Tuesday by the Office of the Telecommunications Authority (OFTA) of Hong Kong, the quake damage on cables is more serious than the preliminary survey and therefore the repair work on one of the major cables will need about two weeks instead of the previous estimation of one week….[Full Text]

  Read also previous post about this earthquake.

  » Read more
  • January 3, 2007 10:09 PM

• China’s Internet Expected to be Back to Normal by Jan. 15 – AP

  

  From AP via USA Today:

  Internet services in China will not be back to normal until mid-January after being disrupted by a powerful earthquake off Taiwan, a news report Sunday quoted the country’s biggest telephone company as saying.

  Internet and telephone services in China and many parts of Asia were cut by Tuesday’s quake, leaving telecommunications companies scrambling to repair damaged undersea cables and switch voice and data communications to satellites and undamaged cables.

  The official Xinhua News Agency quoted an unidentified China Telecom Corp. official as saying Internet service would be back to normal on Jan. 15.[Full Text]

  » Read more
  • December 31, 2006 11:41 AM

• China: Ping ping pfft – John Kennedy

  

  From Global Voices Online:

  The earthquake near Taiwan last night which snapped six underwater internet cables, seems to have left a large part of Asia, particularly the Northeast, struggling for an internet fix.

  Those with internet censorship circumvention tools (proxies) already installed on their computers seem to be doing a little better, but for Hong Kong and mainland China, access is now mostly limited to local sites, but even those have been affected as well. China’s largest internet portal website Sina.com’s blog site shows almost no mention of the earthquake or the blackout, and RSS feeds slowed to a trickle around lunch time today. MSN and Yahoo! Messenger have been affected as well, although QQ and GTalk are operating normally. Phone calls to other continents, some bloggers are saying, don’t connect….[Full Text]

  » Read more
  • December 27, 2006 9:21 AM

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