Magnitude-6.2 quake kills 118 in northwestern China’s Gansu, Qinghai provinces

A magnitude-6.2 earthquake jolted a remote and mountainous county on the northern edge of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau just before midnight on Monday, killing at least 118 people and injuring hundreds, according to Chinese state media.

Authorities have mobilized an array of emergency responses, but rescue work could prove challenging in subzero temperatures. Most of China is grappling with freezing temperatures as a cold wave that started last week continued to sweep through the country, Reuters reported.

Twenty people have been reported missing in the quake’s aftermath after hours of rescue and relief efforts that began before sunrise, according to state media.

Earthquakes are common in western provinces such as Gansu, which lie on the eastern boundary of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, a tectonically active area. China’s deadliest quake in recent decades was in 2008 when a magnitude-8.0 temblor struck Sichuan, killing nearly 70,000 people.

The quake struck Jishishan county in China’s northwestern province of Gansu at 11:59 p.m. local time on Monday at a depth of 10 km, according to China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC).

About 2,200 rescue personnel from the provincial fire department and 900 from the forest brigade, as well as 260 professional emergency rescue personnel, were dispatched to the disaster zone, Xinhua reported, adding that the military and police were also engaged in rescue work.

As the disaster area is in a high-altitude region where the weather is cold, rescue efforts are working to prevent secondary disasters caused by factors beyond the quake, Xinhua said.

The temperature in Linxia, Gansu, near where the quake occurred, was about minus 14 degrees Celsius (6.8°F) on Tuesday morning.