China earthquake kills 258

AT least 258 people were killed and more than 1,000 injured yesterday when an earthquake measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale ripped through a remote area in northwest China.

The quake flattened hundreds of buildings, including schools, as it rocked an area around Jiashi city in the western part of Xinjiang region at 10.03am local time.

"We expect the death toll to rise when we get more information," said a Bachu County Communist Party spokesperson.

An official at the Xinjiang Seismological Bureau said "some schools" collapsed and caused casualties, but was not able to provide a figure for the number of children killed.

Beijing Seismological Bureau official Li Qianghua confirmed the high death toll, blaming the poor quality of structures in the quake-plagued area.

Official state news agency Xinhua said more than 1,000 buildings had collapsed in one village in Bachu County.

The tremor hit 24 miles east of Jiashi city, in a county of the same name, near the Xinjiang border with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, local officials said. Other areas shaken by strong tremors included Artux County, Markit County and Kashi city.

Doctors and the local army rushed to the scene, officials in the area said.

Beijing's Ministry of Civil Affairs announced it had sent a team, led by vice minister Yang Yan Yin, to "guide the local government in the rescue effort".

A shipment of tents, quilts and other emergency supplies was also being hurriedly collected and sent off, Xinhua added, and China's Red Cross

Society offered $30,000 to its branch in the northwestern region.

A rescue team bearing large quantities of cotton-padded clothes, quilts and other essential relief materials from the Xinjiang Red Cross Society was also on its way to the devastated region.

The duty doctor at the area's largest hospital, the First People's Hospital of Kashgar, told AFP all hospitals in the area had sent medical personnel and were fully staffed, ready to accept the injured.

"The local health department has ordered all the hospitals to be prepared to receive the injured," said the doctor, who did not want to be named.

"All the doctors will be on duty this evening.

"Every hospital has sent emergency vehicles and their best doctors to the site.

"We will take as many of the injured as we can."

An official at the Jiashi County government said weather was not expected to hamper rescue efforts.

The United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, in China for talks on Iraq and North Korea, sent his condolences to the victims' families.

"I want to express my regrets to the Chinese people," he said.