Beijing: The death toll in the earthquake that hit the Sichuan province in China on Monday has reached 74 so far, local media reported on Wednesday.
The rescue headquarters of the Ganzi said 40 were killed, 14 were missing and 170 were injured in Ganzi as of 9 pm (local time) on Tuesday, as per Xinhua News Agency. Expressway tollbooths opened up over 700 special channels for earthquake relief. All service areas along the Chengdu-Luding Expressway have been fully stocked with epidemic prevention supplies, oil products, food materials and other emergency supplies.
More than 1,900 officers, armed police and soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army PLA Western Theater Command rushed to the earthquake-hit area and arrived at the epicentre area at 8 am on Tuesday, engaging in the transport of the injured, road dredging, victim search and other rescue work, Global Times reported.
As a result of the earthquake, the power supply in the province was cut off, however, State Grid Sichuan Electric Power Company said that nearly 22,000 households in the earthquake-stricken area have been restored after overnight emergency repair.
Chinese President Xi Jinping requested for all-out relief efforts to prioritize saving lives and minimizing casualties after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake jolted Luding county, Global Times reported. China’s Red Cross Society has initiated a Level-III emergency response, with the first batch of relief materials consisting of 320 tents, 2,200 relief packages, 1,200 quilts and 300 folding beds dispatched to the affected area.
The Red Cross has also sent a working group there to help with the relief and rescue work. Sichuan province has activated the second-highest level of emergency response for the earthquake and more rescue forces are rushing to the epicentre area.
The earthquake jolted Luding County at 12:52 p.m. Monday (Beijing Time), according to the China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC). The epicentre was monitored at 29.59 degrees north latitude and 102.08 degrees east longitude, at a depth of 16 km, the CENC said.
The epicentre is 39 km away from the county seat of Luding and there are several villages within the 5-km range around the epicentre. The tremor was felt in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, which is 226 km away from the epicenter.
The quake was felt around 200 kilometers (125 miles) away in the provincial capital, Chengdu, where a COVID-19 outbreak has restricted most of its 21 million residents to their compounds under China’s strict “zero-COVID” policy.
