According to state media, at least 65 people have been killed after an earthquake of magnitude 6.6 struck southwestern China.
Monday at 13:00 local time (05:00 GMT), a 10km deep earthquake struck Sichuan province around 05:00 GMT (6 miles).
According to local media accounts, the impact damaged communications cables and sparked mountain landslides that caused “major damage.”
Last week, around 21 million residents of Sichuan’s capital Chengdu were required to remain indoors due to Covid regulations.
According to the China Earthquake Networks Centre, the epicenter of the quake was situated in Luding, a town in a remote mountainous region 226 kilometers southwest of Chengdu.
CCTV stated that 17 people perished in the city of Ya’an, while 29 perished in the neighboring prefecture of Ganzi.
CCTV reported late Monday night that an additional 16 individuals were missing and 50 were hurt.
Earthquakes rattled structures in Chengdu and the neighboring megacity of Chongqing, blocking roadways and severing communication connections in places with more than 10,000 inhabitants.
CCTV said that several power plants in the Garze and Ya’an regions were shut down as a result of the tremors.
According to official broadcaster CGTN, more than 500 rescue personnel have been dispatched to the epicenter, as workers seek to clear obstacles produced by landslides.
Residents in Chengdu reported seeing people fleeing their high-rise apartments in a panic after receiving quake signals on their mobile devices.
Laura Luo, an international public relations specialist, told the news agency Reuters, “Many people were so afraid that they began to cry.”
When the trembling started, “All of the dogs began to bark. It was quite terrifying “.
Chen, a Chengdu resident, told the AFP news agency that some of his ground-floor neighbors reported feeling the tremors strongly.
“However, because Chengdu is currently under epidemic management, residents are not permitted to leave their residential compounds; hence, a large number of them raced out into their courtyards.”
On Friday, Chengdu became the latest Chinese city to be quarantined to curb the surge of Covid infections.
The most recent catastrophe occurred months after a 6.1-magnitude earthquake devastated Sichuan in June. As Sichuan is near the eastern limit of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, it is prone to earthquakes.
The earthquake also brought to mind a magnitude 8.0 quake that struck Wenchuan county in northwest Sichuan in 2008, killing 70,000 people and causing severe destruction.
