China Earthquake Displaces 250,000 People

GUANTUNXIANG, China — Thousands camped in tents in southwestern China on Saturday after a magnitude-6.0 earthquake destroyed thousands of homes, killed one person and injured 320, state media reported.

At the epicenter of Thursday's quake in Yao'an county, nearly 22,000 people took shelter in some 3,000 tents, and emergency crews rushed in quilts, rice, cooking oil and other supplies, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The quake displaced some 250,000 people, the report said, sharply revising downward an initial estimate of 400,000. Xinhua, which cited a deputy governor of Yunnan province where the quake occurred, did not give a reason for the discrepancy. A duty officer at the provincial government offices declined to comment, saying the media office was closed for the weekend.

Yao'an, a hilly area, sustained the worst damage, accounting for nearly half the people displaced.

In Guantunxiang, one of the hardest-hit villages, Li Fashun's house was reduced to a pile of red bricks.

"I don't think I'll be able to rebuild my house because I'm not strong enough to make enough money," the 56-year-old farmer told an AP Television News reporter Saturday.

Elsewhere, several Chinese soldiers wearing fatigues sifted through a collapsed building as a woman recovered a live chicken from the rubble. Nearby, another three soldiers carrying hoes walked in single file, their leader holding a flagpole displaying the red Chinese national flag. Three stray pigs sniffed through another big heap of rubble.

Xinhua previously reported that 18,000 homes were destroyed and another 75,000 were damaged in Yao'an and five neighboring counties. A disaster relief official said late Friday that other collapsed homes may be found in more mountainous and sparsely populated areas.

People often leave even undamaged houses after earthquakes because they are afraid to sleep indoors while aftershocks continue to shake the area. Those who did not sleep in tents went to stay with relatives, Xinhua said.

Yunnan is part of a quake-prone region bordered on the north by Sichuan province, where a magnitude-7.9 quake last year left almost 90,000 people dead or missing.

In 1988, a magnitude-7.1 quake in Yunnan near Myanmar killed 930 people. More than 15,000 people died after a magnitude-7.7 quake in the province in 1970, though authorities at the time covered up information on casualties and damage amid the chaos of the Cultural Revolution.

Comments

[Mildmannered]

18,00 homes destroyed and only one person killed?

[AuntiepoppyCock]

China please don't fail the people on the country side. I can't believe only one person died...that's something special or a bald face lie.

I want to see the great wall up close one day.

[FogBelter]

I don't think the Chinese Government needed another chance to come up short in the eyes of the people in the countryside ... they better have a more successful response to this earthquake than the last one.

[confidance government]

They should stop pulling Katrinas in other words?

[crowepps]

Only one person was killed? That is truly remarkable in an area with such a large population. Did the Chinese issue a prior warning to get people outside as they have done before?

[jmundstuk]

Holy cow! 6.0? That's barely more than a massage here in CA.

[Deli]

Okay. I don't normally subscribe to these sorts of "channeled" messages, but six months of research has me convinced there is some incredible consistency between messages since the 70s and this example I am linking really nails what is going on worldwide. It covers personal and collective things, such as changes the Earth is going through and how political power and the economic ways of the powerful are no longer sustainable. It predicted and explains what is going on with the electromagnetic field (which mainstream media is finally reporting) and how it plays with the increase in earthquakes.

This is link to the archives. Check out the message titled "Truth and Lies in Global Politics" from 2003. The messages are listed from most recent, descending.

http://tomkenyon.com/hathors-archives

[The Lorax]

Very sad.

[AngieMom57]

California is next...

[Sherzie]

I don't doubt it one bit.

Last year USGS held an earthquake drill in So. Cal and is sponsoring another ln October 2009. In the last five years micro-quakes have jumped from 200 a week to 500 to 700 a week. I have read that these micro-quakes increase before major seismic events. My guess is that USGS expects a major California quake in the foreseeable future.

http://www.shakeout.org/
http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/

[FogBelter]

Anyone who is aware of what the Kobe Earthquake did to the Japanese Economy had better pray California isn't next.

[RogerHWerner]

Do any of you people actually live in California? Ever hear of Loma Prieta? What about Northridge? These quakes were big. Loma Prieta knocked out part of the Bay Bridge and nearly wiped out downtown Watsonville (about 6 miles from epicenter). In California we have these rules called earthquake safety laws...something most fo the rest of the world doesn't have. It would very likely take a quake much larger then is expected on the San Andres system to make a quarter of million people homeless. Would a big quake hurt California? Sure it would, I'm not suggesting it wouldn't. But the kind of damage suggested by these posts is probably unlikely even in a quake of the magnitude of 1906 or somewhat greater.

[munki]

changing climate? affecting this?

[AngieMom57]

What r u talking about? HAARP

[Bitsko]

Plate tectonics. Ironically, a planet can't thrive without it.