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Quakes kill at least 64 in mountainous SW China

Dunya News

At least 64 people were killed in twin earthquakes in mountainous southwestern China.

Twin earthquakes and a spate of aftershocks struck southwestern China on Friday, toppling thousands of houses and sending boulders cascading across roads. At least 64 people were killed and hundreds injured in the remote mountainous area, and more than 100,000 residents were evacuated.Damage was preventing rescuers from reaching outlying towns, and communications were disrupted after the midday quakes hit along the borders of Guizhou and Yunnan provinces, a rural region where some of Chinas poorest people live.The first 5.6-magnitude quake struck just before 11:30 a.m. and was followed by an equally strong quake shortly after noon, joined by dozens of aftershocks. Though of moderate strength, the quakes were shallow, which often causes more damage.Hardest hit was Yiliang County, where all but one of the deaths occurred, according to the Yunnan provincial governments official website. Another 715 people in the area were injured. Yiliangs high population density, shoddy building construction and propensity for landslides were blamed for the relatively high death toll.China Central Television showed roads littered with rocks and boulders and pillars of dust rising over hilltops from the landslides. One image taken just as one quake struck showed people running out of a supermarket as the ground shook.Other footage showed several hundred people crowding into a school athletic field in Yiliangs county seat, a sizable city spread along a river in a valley, as well as soldiers carrying injured people and rescue materials.Though quakes occur in the area frequently, buildings in rural areas and Chinas fast-growing smaller cities and towns are often constructed poorly. A magnitude-7.9 quake that hit Sichuan province, just north of Yunnan, in 2008 killed nearly 90,000 people, with many of the deaths blamed on poorly built structures, including schools.Fridays quakes destroyed or damaged almost 30,000 homes across several counties and townships, the provincial government website said. The Yunnan seismology bureau said more than 100,000 people were evacuated from their homes. All told, 700,000 people had their lives disrupted by the quake, the official Xinhua News Agency said.In Luozehe, a town in Yiliang near a zinc mine, residents and state media said boulders hurtled off hillsides and houses collapsed.