Death toll in China's earthquake rises to 131; deadliest quake in 9 years
Beijing (AP): A strong overnight earthquake rattled a mountainous region of northwestern China, authorities said on Tuesday, reducing homes to rubble, leaving residents outside in a below-freezing winter night and killing 131 people in the nation's deadliest quake in nine years.
The magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck just before midnight on Monday, injuring more than 700 people, damaging roads and knocking out power and communication lines in Gansu and Qinghai provinces, officials and Chinese media reports said.
As emergency workers searched for the missing in collapsed buildings and at least one landslide, people who lost their homes spent a cold winter night in tents at hastily erected evacuation sites.
"I just feel anxious, what other feelings could there be?" said Ma Dongdong, who noted in a phone interview that three bedrooms in his house had been destroyed and a part of his milk tea shop was cracked wide open.
Afraid to return home because of aftershocks, he spent the first night in a field with his wife, two children and some neighbours, where they made a fire to stay warm. In the early morning, they went to a tent settlement that Ma said was housing about 700 people. As of mid-afternoon, they were waiting for blankets and warm clothing to arrive.
The earthquake struck at a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles) in Gansu's Jishishan county, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the provincial boundary with Qinghai, the China Earthquake Networks Centre said. The US Geological Survey measured the magnitude at 5.9.
State broadcaster CCTV said 113 were confirmed dead in Gansu and another 536 injured in the province. Eighteen others were killed and 198 injured in Qinghai, in an area north of the epicentre, CCTV said in an update early on Wednesday.
There were nine aftershocks measuring magnitude 3.0 or higher by 10 a.m. about 10 hours after the initial earthquake the largest one registering a magnitude of 4.1, officials said.
Emergency authorities in Gansu issued an appeal for 300 additional workers for search and rescue operations, and Qinghai officials reported 16 people missing in a landslide, down from 20 earlier, according to Chinese state-owned media.
The earthquake was felt in much of the surrounding area, including Lanzhou, the Gansu provincial capital, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) northeast of the epicentre.
Photos and videos posted by a student at Lanzhou University showed students hastily leaving a dormitory building and standing outside with long down jackets over their pajamas.
"The earthquake was too intense," said Wang Xi, the student who posted the images. "My legs went weak, especially when we ran downstairs from the dormitory."
The death toll was the highest since an August 2014 quake that killed 617 people in southwest China's Yunnan province. The country's deadliest earthquake in recent years was a 7.9 magnitude quake in 2008 that left nearly 90,000 dead or presumed dead and devastated towns and schools in Sichuan province, leading to a yearslong effort to rebuild with more resistant materials.
Li Haibing, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, said that the relatively high number of casualties in the latest quake was in part because it was shallow. "Therefore, it has caused greater shaking and destruction, even though the magnitude was not large," he said.
Other factors include the quake's mainly vertical movement, which causes more violent shaking; the lower quality of buildings in what is a relatively poor area, and the fact that it happened in the middle of the night when most people were home, Li said.
The epicenter was about 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) southwest of Beijing, the Chinese capital. The remote and mountainous area is home to several predominantly Muslim ethnic groups and near some Tibetan communities. Geographically, it is in the centre of China, though the area is commonly referred to as the northwest, as it is at the northwestern edge of China's more populated plains.
Tents, folding beds and quilts were being sent to the disaster area, state broadcaster CCTV said. It quoted Chinese leader Xi Jinping as calling for an all-out search and rescue effort to minimise the casualties.
The overnight low in the area was minus 15 to minus 9 degrees Celsius (5 to 16 degrees Fahrenheit), the China Meteorological Administration said. The Beijing Youth Daily, a Communist Party newspaper, quoted an unnamed rescue coordinator saying there was a need for generators, long coats and fuel for stoves, among other items. The coordinator recommended sending halal food because of the ethnic makeup of the affected population.
At least 4,000 firefighters, soldiers and police officers were dispatched in the rescue effort, and the People's Liberation Army Western Theatre set up a command post to direct its work.
A video posted by the Ministry of Emergency Management showed emergency workers in orange uniforms using rods to try to move heavy pieces of what looked like concrete debris at night. Other nighttime videos distributed by state media showed workers lifting out a victim and helping a slightly stumbling person to walk in an area covered with light snow.
Two residents of Jishishan county told The Associated Press that there were cracks in their walls but that their buildings did not collapse. They were unsure whether it was safe to stay in their homes and figuring out where to spend the night.
Middle school student Ma Shijun ran out of his dormitory barefoot without even putting on a coat, according to a Xinhua report. It said the strong tremors left his hands a bit numb, and that teachers quickly organised the students on the playground.
Earthquakes are somewhat common in the mountainous area of western China that rises up to form the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau.
In September 2022, 93 people were killed in a 6.8 magnitude earthquake that shook China's southwestern province of Sichuan, triggering landslides and shaking buildings in the provincial capital of Chengdu, where 21 million residents were under a COVID-19 lockdown.
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Sanjay Raut demands re-election, alleges irregularities in EVMs during Maharashtra polls
Mumbai, Nov 25: Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut on Monday demanded a re-election in Maharashtra using ballot papers, claiming there were irregularities with the electronic voting machines (EVMs).
Talking to reporters, Raut alleged several complaints about EVMs malfunctioning and questioned the integrity of the recently held elections.
The BJP-led Mahayuti won 230 out of 288 seats in the assembly elections, while the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi managed 46 seats, with Shiv Sena (UBT) winning just 20 out of 95 seats it contested.
"We have received nearly 450 complaints regarding EVMs. Despite raising objections repeatedly, no action has been taken on these issues. How can we say these elections were conducted fairly? Hence, I demand that the results be set aside and elections be held again using ballot papers," Raut said.
Citing some instances, he said a candidate in Nashik reportedly received only four votes despite having 65 votes from his family, while in Dombivli, discrepancies were found in EVM tallies, and election officials refused to acknowledge the objections.
The Sena (UBT) leader also questioned the credibility of the landslide victories of some candidates, saying, "What revolutionary work have they done to receive more than 1.5 lakh votes? Even leaders who recently switched parties have become MLAs. This raises suspicions. For the first time, a senior leader like Sharad Pawar has expressed doubts about EVMs, which cannot be ignored."
Asked about the MVA's poor performance in the elections, Raut rejected the idea of blaming a single individual.
"We fought as a united MVA. Even a leader like Sharad Pawar, who commands immense respect in Maharashtra, faced defeat. This shows that we need to analyse the reasons behind the failure. One of the reasons is EVM irregularities and the misuse of the system, unconstitutional practices, and even judicial decisions left unresolved by Justice Chandrachud," he said.
Raut stressed that though internal differences might have existed within the MVA, the failure was collective.
He also accused the Mahayuti of conducting the elections in an unfair manner.
"I cannot call the elections fair given the numerous reports of discrepancies in EVMs, mismatched numbers, and vote irregularities across the state," Raut said.
