The death toll from Monday’s earthquake has risen further. 87,000 people had to find emergency shelter as polar cold hit northern China.
Survivors of the earthquake in China, which caused 131 dead according to a new provisional reporthuddled in makeshift tents on Wednesday, at a time when a record cold spell was raging in the north of the country.
AFP journalists saw families sheltering in tents made of wooden poles and tarpaulins outside a mosque in Jishishan county, northwest Gansu province, near from the epicenter of the earthquake which occurred during the night of Monday to Tuesday.
For these families deprived since the disaster, the only sources of heat are stoves installed in the open air and blankets hastily collected from their damaged houses.
In the commune of Liugou, residents crowd around stoves in large tents set up by local authorities on a basketball court.
Some tents hold up to 35 people, one resident told AFP. Children lie under the covers, playing on their phones, while adults try to prepare instant noodles provided by the authorities, but in still limited quantities.
AFP also saw rescue teams unloading large packages of equipment, including additional tents.
Nearly a thousand injured people in total were hospitalized, and 87,000 people were transferred to “temporary shelters” in Gansu province alone, according to state media CCTV.
The same source announced on Wednesday a new provisional human toll from the disaster: 113 dead in the province of Gansu and 18 in the neighboring province of Qinghai.
Polar temperatures
Hopes of still finding survivors seem slim, around thirty hours after the disaster, given the cold which has become polar in the region. Temperatures in Jishishan County are expected to plunge to -17°C on Wednesday.
A record cold spell is currently affecting northern China. The thermometer notably dropped to -33.2°C in a city in Shanxi province during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday.
“Search and rescue operations largely ended yesterday (Tuesday, Editor’s note) at 3:00 p.m., and the main mission now is to treat the wounded and rehouse” homeless people, a Gansu Emergency Management Department official said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Thousands of firefighters and rescue workers were dispatched to the disaster areas. According to Chinese state media, 2,500 tents, 20,000 coats and 5,000 folding beds have been sent to Gansu province.
The earthquake struck between Monday and Tuesday just before midnight, about 1,300 km southwest of Beijing. The earthquake was of magnitude 6.2 according to the New China agency. (5.9 according to the United States Geological Survey USGS) and was followed by numerous weaker aftershocks.
Chinese authorities have warned that new earthquakes of magnitude greater than 5 are possible in the coming days.
It’s about deadliest earthquake in the country since a quake in Yunnan province (southwest China) which left more than 600 dead in 2014.
And in 2008, a huge earthquake in Sichuan province (central-west) left more than 87,000 people dead or missing, including 5,335 schoolchildren.