BANGKOK: More than 150 people were killed and 5,700 injured when a strong earthquake hit a mountainous part of southwestern China on Saturday, destroying thousands of homes and triggering landslides. The shallow earthquake struck Sichuan province on the edge of the Tibetan plateau just after 8am, prompting a major rescue operation in the same area where 87,000 people were reported dead or missing in a massive quake in 2008. Nearly 13 hours after the quake hit Lushan county in the city of Ya'an, the death toll stood at 157, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing the ministry of civil affairs which said more than 5,700 had been injured. At least 10,000 homes were destroyed, the Sichuan government said as rescue workers searched through the rubble for survivors. Local seismologists registered the quake at magnitude 7.0 while the US Geological Survey gave it as 6.6. More than 260 aftershocks followed, People's Daily said on its website. The shaking was felt in the provincial capital Chengdu, which lies to the east, and even in the megacity of Chongqing several hundred kilometers away. Panicked residents fled into the streets, some of them still in their slippers and pyjamas. “Members of my family were woken up. They were lying in bed when the strong shaking began and the wardrobes began shaking strongly,” said a 43-year-old Chongqing resident surnamed Wang. “We grabbed our clothes and ran outside.” BN
