Quake in western China kills 242 people

At least 242 people were killed today by a powerful earthquake that struck China’s remote western region of Xinjiang, the government said. More than 1,000 homes were destroyed in just one town.

The 6.8 magnitude quake struck Bachu County on the western edge of Xinjiang, near China’s mountainous border with Kyrgyzstan, at 10.03am (2.03am Irish time).

Most of the people who died were killed in Bachu County, said Zhang Yong, director of disaster prevention for the Xinjiang Seismology Bureau. The area is about 1,750 miles west of the capital Beijing.

More than 1,000 houses and school buildings collapsed in one town in Bachu County, near the centre of the earthquake, state media said.

The quake also shook neighbouring Jiashi County, but less damage was reported there, Zhang said.

He said buildings in Bachu were older and weaker, while Jiashi suffered a series of severe quakes in the late 1990s and damaged houses and shops were rebuilt using more solid construction methods.

Most of the dead in Bachu were in collapsed houses where the quake caught them eating breakfast, police said.

Earthquakes are common in Xinjiang, especially in its west, which covers the eastern foothills of the soaring Pamir and Tianshan mountains of Central Asia. But they usually cause few injuries and little property damage because the area is so sparsely populated.

On January 5, a 5.4 magnitude quake struck Jiashi County, but no deaths or injuries were reported.

On December 25, a 5.7 magnitude quake struck another part of western Xinjiang near the Afghan border. Some buildings were damaged but no injuries or deaths reported.