China earthquake kills more than 45 in southwest region with many under COVID lockdown
At least 46 people were reported killed and 16 missing in a 6.8 magnitude earthquake that shook China's southwestern province of Sichuan on Monday, triggering landslides and shaking buildings in the provincial capital of Chengdu, whose 21 million residents are already under a COVID-19 lockdown.
The quake struck a mountainous area in Luding county shortly after noon, the China Earthquake Networks Center said.
Sichuan, which sits on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau where tectonic plates meet, is regularly hit by earthquakes. Two quakes in June killed at least four people.
The death toll rose to 46 with 16 missing as the search for trapped people continued Monday night, state broadcaster CCTV said.
"I felt it quite strongly. Some of my neighbours on the ground floor said they felt it very noticeably," Chen, a resident of Chengdu, told AFP. "But because Chengdu is currently under epidemic management, people aren't allowed to leave their residential compounds, so many of them rushed out into their courtyards."
Earlier, authorities had reported 7 deaths in Luding county and 14 more in neighboring Shimian county to the south. Three of the dead were workers at the Hailuogou Scenic Area, a glacier and forest nature reserve.
Along with the deaths, authorities reported stones and soil falling from mountainsides, causing damage to homes and power interruptions, CCTV said. One landslide blocked a rural highway, leaving it strewn with rocks, the Ministry of Emergency Management said.
Buildings shook in Chengdu, 200 kilometers (125 miles) away from the epicenter. Resident Jiang Danli said she hid under a desk for five minutes in her 31st floor apartment. Many of her neighbors rushed downstairs, wary of aftershocks.
"There was a strong earthquake in June, but it wasn't very scary. This time I was really scared, because I live on a high floor and the shaking made me dizzy," she told The Associated Press.
The earthquake and lockdown follow a heat wave and drought that led to water shortages and power cuts due to Sichuan's reliance on hydropower. That comes on top of the latest major lockdown under China's strict "zero-COVID" policy.
The past two months in Chengdu "have been weird," Jiang said.
The U.S. Geological Survey recorded a magnitude of 6.6 for Monday's quake at a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles). Preliminary measurements by different agencies often differ slightly.
Earthquakes are fairly common in China, especially in the country's seismically active southwest.
An 8.0-magnitude quake in 2008 in Sichuan's Wenchuan county left tens of thousands dead and caused enormous damage.
At least four people were killed and dozens more injured after two earthquakes in southwestern China in June.
That month a shallow 6.1-magnitude quake hit a sparsely populated area about 60 miles west of Chengdu.
It was followed three minutes later by a second quake of magnitude 4.5 in a nearby county, where the deaths and injuries occurred.
Authorities in Chengdu extended the city's virus lockdown on Sunday as they fight a COVID flare-up with hundreds of cases.
The region has also suffered a summer of extreme weather, with a record-breaking heatwave noticeably drying rivers in Chongqing.