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China quake toll rises
BEIJING, China -- The death toll from a violent earthquake in China's northwest has risen to 261 people, with over 2,000 injured and nearly 9,000 homes razed to the ground. The 6.4 magnitude quake struck the western edge of Xinjiang province at 10.03 a.m. Monday morning in Xinjiang province, trapping many victims in their homes as they ate breakfast. Moments after the quake hit, Communist party General Secretary Hu Jintao and Premier Zhu Rongji issued instructions to "use a thousand and one ways" to treat the injured and to get food, medicine and other resources to the remote region. Officials say that as the rescue and recovery effort gathers pace, the death toll is likely to rise much further. (Rescue and recovery) Medical personnel and thousands of tons of emergency relief material have been sent to Jiashi and Bachu counties, 2,900 kilometers (1,400 miles) west of the Beijing, near China's mountainous border with Kyrgyzstan. About 1,500 People's Armed Police officers, in addition to regular soldiers and police from other parts of Xinjiang, have been deployed to the area. An official from the Xinjiang Earthquake Prevention Bureau said there had been more than 100 aftershocks on Monday but no serious additional damage was reported. Seismic officials in Bachu said the casualty figures were relatively high because, unlike a number of previous tremors in the area, the quake hit close to the center of Bachu, home to 370,000 people. The majority of houses in the region are made of wood and earth and therefore not shock-resistant. Zhou Mingcheng, who runs a flour mill in the county, said he and his family only just managed to escape from their home as the quake hit. "We were sleeping at the time, and it was still dark. We ran out immediately when it began to shake," he told Reuters by telephone. 'Children trapped'As aftershocks rattled the region, an official from nearby Kashgar county told CNN an unknown number of children were trapped under a collapsed school building. Most of the dead were found in the rubble of collapsed houses. The quake was felt in the provincial capital Urumqi, more than 1,000 kilometers to the northeast although no damage or casualties have been reported there. Xinjiang, which has a majority Muslim population, comprises about 16 percent of China's total landmass, much of it made up of sparsely populated desert. Earthquakes are common in Xinjiang, especially in its west, but they usually cause few injuries and little damage because the area is so sparsely populated. The country's largest quake in recent times struck the northern city of Tangshan in 1976, killing more than a quarter of a million people. Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Lots of people are outside now and no one dares stay at home
