Rescuers battle to find China quake survivors

Rescuers battled through dusty rubble Tuesday to try to reach victims of two shallow earthquakes in China that killed at least 89 people, AFP reports. State broadcaster CCTV showed images of soldiers digging through earth and sand to reach simple houses buried under landslides in the northwestern province of Gansu. Seriously injured patients wrapped in blankets were put into helicopters heading to the provincial capital Lanzhou, which has the nearest major hospital. The twin earthquakes that struck on Monday morning had magnitudes of 5.9 and 5.6 according to the US Geological Survey, but were only 10 kilometres (six miles) deep, so that much of the energy released was transmitted to the surface, where it wreaked havoc. The overnight toll stood at 89 dead, reports said, citing the city government of Dingxi, which includes the worst-affected counties, and other local authorities, with hundreds of people injured. In Meichuan, 20-year-old villager Chu Xiaoyi told China's official Xinhua news agency a landslide obliterated his house. "We were sleeping when it happened, so we ran out almost naked," it quoted him as saying. "Now we have nothing left and even our clothes are borrowed from neighbours." Initial investigations showed at least 5,785 houses had collapsed and another 73,000 were severely damaged, Xinhua said. Around 6,000 rescuers, among them armed police, firefighters, militiamen and local government staff had been sent to the region, it added. Hundreds of aftershocks were recorded in the disaster zone, an area of dusty, jagged mountains. CCTV showed makeshift tent relief centres being set up, with water, instant noodles and blankets being handed out. Throughout the night scores of rescue vehicles headed south from Lanzhou to the quake area. Many rescue workers had travelled from across the country and refused to rest during the night as they raced to find survivors. "We know the road is more dangerous when it is dark, but we cannot waste a second," said a relief worker who had flown from Beijing with 12 volunteers. His group joined convoys of army vehicles and ambulances on the highway to Min county, the worst-hit zone. Many residents in Dingxi town centre felt the main tremor despite the epicentre being some 185 kilometres away. "I was on the second floor of our building, but it felt very powerful," said the manager of the six-storey Haitian hotel, who is surnamed Xia. "Many people staying on the higher floors ran out of their rooms, looking rather stunned," she told AFP. Heavy clouds had gathered over the quake region early Tuesday, as farmers in the largely rural area tended their goats on the mountainsides. Any storms could hamper the rescue efforts, bringing with them the threat of further landslides. Beijing's own China Earthquake Networks Centre put the magnitude of the larger quake at 6.6. The China Earthquake Administration said the same fault zone was linked to a magnitude 8.0 quake on July 21, 1654, Xinhua reported. The USGS rated Monday's main tremor at seven on its "shakemap", with shaking perceived to be "very strong". Much of western China is prone to earthquakes. A magnitude 6.6 earthquake in neighbouring Sichuan province killed about 200 people earlier this year, five years after almost 90,000 people were killed by a huge tremor in the same province.