Strong Quake Hits Western China

BEIJING—At least 75 people were killed and more than 600 were injured after a 6.6-magnitude earthquake struck northwest China’s remote and impoverished Gansu province on Monday, the second major quake to strike western China since April.
China’s official Xinhua news agency said the earthquake struck at 7:45 a.m. near the small city of Dingxi, southeast of the provincial capital Lanzhou. At least 1,200 homes were destroyed and 21,000 others were damaged, Xinhua reported, quoting a spokesman for the provincial government. A government statement late Monday said 14 people were missing.
Photos posted to popular Chinese social networks showed badly damaged homes in rural Minxian county, which was among the hardest hit areas. The photos depicted a makeshift hospital in Minxian where local leaders visited with the injured.
Chinese officials put the earthquake’s magnitude at 6.6, while the U.S. Geological Survey said the quake measured 5.9.

Zuma Press
A man stands next to a damaged house in quake-hit Majiagou village in Minxian County, part of northwest China’s Gansu Province.

State-run broadcaster China Central Television said People’s Liberation Army soldiers as well as paramilitary police had been deployed to the area to aid in rescue efforts, and the aired images of rescue workers digging through the rubble of collapsed homes and driving along moderately damaged roads. Xinhua quoted the provincial metrological station as forecasting rain around Dingxi, which it said threatened to complicate rescue efforts.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang called for all-out efforts to rescue the injured, according to state media. China in the past has come under criticism for a slow response to disasters, spurring leaders in recent years to make efforts to show the government is waging all-out rescue efforts.
The government said communications had been lost with several of the affected counties and townships, and it wasn’t immediately clear Monday evening when power and communications would be restored to the area. More than 27,000 people had been relocated from the area as of Monday afternoon, according to a statement from the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
Monday’s earthquake immediately rekindled memories of a large quake in April that killed 200 people and injured more than 11,000 in southwest Sichuan province. More than 80,000 Chinese were killed in a 2008 quake measuring magnitude 7.9 rocked Sichuan province. The high death toll was in part blamed on shoddily built schools and others structures which collapsed, leaving thousands of students trapped inside.
Write to Brian Spegele at brian.spegele@wsj.com

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