Midnight earthquake kills 116, injures nearly 400 in northwest China
Beijing/Jishishan (PTI): At least 116 people were killed and nearly 400 others injured when a powerful 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck a remote mountainous region in northwest China just before midnight, the local earthquake relief headquarters said on Tuesday.
According to the China Earthquake Networks Centre, the shallow quake jolted Gansu and Qinghai provinces at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, with a focal depth of 10 kilometres.
The epicentre of the earthquake Liugou township is about 8 kilometres from the county seat of Jishishan Bao'an, Dongxiang, Sala autonomous county in Linxia Hui autonomous prefecture in Gansu.
Experts say shallow quakes cause heavy damage to infrastructure.
Qinghai province is adjacent to the Tibet Himalayan region which is prone to frequent earthquakes due to shifting of continental plates.
A second quake struck the neighbouring Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region hours later on Tuesday.
The Atux City of Kizilsu Kirgiz Autonomous Prefecture in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, was struck by the earthquake at 9:46 a.m. loacal time on Tuesday, the CENC said.
The epicentre, with a depth of 10 km, was monitored at 40.02 degrees north latitude and 77.86 degrees east longitude, the CENC said.
Gansu and Qinghai also experienced aftershocks.
While 105 people were killed in Gansu, 11 others died in Qinghai due to the quake, according to official media reports.
So far 397 people have been reported injured in the quake-hit areas, officials said.
The quake has damaged 6,381 houses in Jishishan.
So far 32 aftershocks were recorded, with the largest registering a magnitude of 4.0, said Han Shujun, a spokesperson for the provincial emergency management department, at the press conference.
The quake has destroyed some rural roads, leading to power outages and telecommunication failures. The maintenance crew has been working overnight to repair the damaged infrastructure.
Several villages suffered power failures and disruption of water.
The Ministry of Transport, which monitors the operation of roads, said on Tuesday morning that a bridge across the Yellow River had cracked because of the quake.
According to local meteorological authorities, the daily low temperature in Jishishan is reported to climb minus 10 degrees Celsius on Tuesday.
The provincial fire and rescue department sent 580 rescuers aided with 88 fire engines, 12 search and rescue dogs, and more than 10,000 sets of equipment to the disaster area.
The railway authority has suspended passenger and cargo trains passing through the quake zone and ordered a safety check of railway tracks.
Hu Changsheng, the ruling Communist Party chief of Gansu, and Ren Zhenhe, the governor of Gansu, have rushed to the disaster-hit area to command rescue and relief efforts.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang have ordered all-out rescue efforts to minimise casualties after the earthquake.
Xi asked local authorities to rescue and treat the injured people promptly, and closely monitor the earthquake situation and weather changes to prevent secondary disasters.
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Govt using women's quota pretext to push delimitation: TMC
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New Delhi (PTI): The Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Monday accused the government of using the pretext of early implementation of women's reservation law to "bulldoze" its "real agenda of delimitation".
The TMC said it has always supported women's reservation, but the government cannot "rush" through a bill that will "change the political map" of India based on the 2011 Census.
Parliament is set to meet from April 16 to 18 to consider bills to ensure the implementation of the 33 per cent quota in legislative bodies for women in the 2029 elections. It includes increasing the strength of the Lok Sabha from 543 to 816 seats, with 273 seats reserved for women, and amendments to the Delimitation Act to enable redrawing of constituencies.
In a post on X, TMC Rajya Sabha leader Derek O'Brien shared a video of his earlier speech on the Constitution (128th Amendment) Bill, 2023 -- also known as the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam -- and underlined his party’s long-standing advocacy for women’s reservation.
He recalled that TMC chief Mamata Banerjee had raised the issue in Parliament as early as July 14, 1998.
Highlighting his party’s track record, O’Brien pointed to the proportion of women candidates fielded and elected by the TMC, stating that the party had given 41 per cent tickets to women in 2014 and currently has one of the highest shares of women MPs.
"Modi govt cannot rush through a bill in a special parliament session bang in the middle of Assembly Polls, a bill that will change the political map of India based on the 2011 census (data which is fifteen years old) in 2026 without greater discussion (sic)," TMC Deputy Leader in the Rajya Sabha Sagarika Ghose said on X.
"Mr Modi-Shah must be reminded: India is not a single-party democracy. Bulldozing and bullying is against the parliamentary spirit," she said.
In a post on X, TMC leader and former Rajya Sabha MP Saket Gokhale accused the government of running a "fake and malicious agenda " claiming it wants “early reservations for women in Parliament”.
"In reality, Modi is using women as an excuse to bulldoze his real agenda of delimitation (which is redrawing boundaries of Lok Sabha & Assembly seats in states to benefit the BJP)," he alleged.
He said that at the time of passage of the bill on women's reservation in 2023, opposition parties had expressed concern that its implementation would be delayed, but the government had ignored them, and said it would happen after the Census in 2026.
"Now, suddenly, just when Bengal and Tamil Nadu are going to elections, Modi decides that delimitation will be done before the 2026 Census. Instead of conducting delimitation based on India’s actual population, the Modi government has come up with its own unknown formula," he said.
He questioned the connection between delimitation and women's reservation, and what is stopping the government from implementing it on the existing 543 seats without delimitation.
The Union Cabinet has cleared draft bills to operationalise the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam ahead of the 2029 Lok Sabha elections. The proposed changes include increasing the strength of the Lok Sabha from 543 to 816 seats, with 273 seats reserved for women.
The legislative package is expected to include a Constitution amendment bill to modify provisions of the Act, alongside amendments to the Delimitation Act to enable redrawing of constituencies in line with the expanded House strength.
Another bill is also likely to extend the implementation of the reservation framework to Union Territories with legislatures, including Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir and Puducherry.
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