According to official reports, at least seven people were killed and hundreds more were injured when a powerful earthquake hit a rural region of southern China on Monday.
According to the US Geological Survey, the 6.6 magnitude earthquake occurred about 43 kilometers (26 miles) southeast of the city of Kangding in Sichuan province. The earthquake occurred at a depth of 10 kilometers.
According to AFP, tremors were felt in both the provincial capital of Chengdu and the adjoining megacity of Chongqing, where millions of people are currently quarantined at home due to a stringent Covid lockdown.
There were at least seven fatalities and “serious damage” to at least one town due to landslides in the mountains, according to state media outlet CCTV.
CCTV shows that communications links serving neighborhoods with more than 10,000 people were cut and a road leading to another town was closed.
The broadcaster also said that certain power plants in the Garze and Ya’an areas had to be shut down due to the tremors.
Chen, a local of Chengdu, remarked, “I felt it fairly intensely.”
Some of her ground-floor neighbors “claimed they felt it really noticeably,” she said.
Since residents of Chengdu are not permitted to leave their residential compounds during the present period of “epidemic management,” many of them rushed out into their courtyards.
The China Earthquake Networks Center uploaded a video showing rocks crashing down mountain slopes in the affected Luding county, stirring up clouds of dust and causing the telephone wires along the highways to tremble.
According to official media, multiple aftershocks were felt in the region. Less than an hour after the initial quake, the USGS recorded a second, weaker tremor, this one near eastern Tibet and at just Magnitude 4.6.
According to state television CGTN, hundreds of rescue workers were sent to the epicenter while workers sought to remove highways blocked by landslides.
Photos released by the government’s press showed officials in military fatigues carrying shovels and other equipment down a highway while using face masks as a precaution against Covid-19.
A Chongqing resident reported that his fifth-floor apartment’s lights and furniture had swayed during the tremor, calling it “very obvious.”
When asked about his fears, he told AFP that they were unfounded because “people here didn’t seem to be fazed by it.”
Extreme summer Earthquakes are not uncommon in China, especially in the southwest, which is known for its geological instability.
Wenchuan county in the province of Sichuan experienced a devastating 8.0-magnitude earthquake in 2008. The earthquake killed tens of thousands of people and caused extensive damage.
Two earthquakes in June killed at least four people and injured scores more in southwestern China.
A shallow 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck that month, 100 kilometers west of Chengdu in an unpopulated region.
There were fatalities and injuries in a neighboring county, where a second quake of magnitude 4.5 struck three minutes later.
In response to a Covid outbreak involving hundreds of cases, authorities in Chengdu extended the citywide viral lockdown on Sunday.
Chongqing’s waterways have dried up substantially due to the record-breaking temperatures that the region experienced this summer.