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Dozens die in earthquake near Beijing
January 10, 1998
A collapsed building near Zhangbei
Web posted at: 9:18 a.m. EST (1418 GMT)BEIJING (CNN) -- At least 47 people were killed and tens of thousands left homeless when a powerful earthquake rocked parts of northern China, the official Xinhua news agency reported Saturday.
The magnitude 6.2 quake, capable of causing severe damage, mostly affected areas northwest of Beijing but also shook houses as far as 250 kilometers (150 miles) south of the capital.
More than 100 people were seriously injured, Xinhua reported, and quoted the State Seismology Bureau as saying that 20,000 families had been left homeless in Zhangbei. The town has a population of about 360,000 people and is located 220 km (140 miles) northwest of Beijing in the province of Hebei.
CNN's Rebecca MacKinnon reports from the scene of the quake 
349K/30 sec. AIFF or WAV sound Rescue teams from the bureau found that 800 houses in Shangyi county, on Hebei province's border with Inner Mongolia, had collapsed or cracked and that nearly all houses in Zhangbei, the main town in the neighboring county, had cracks, Xinhua said.
About 10,000 people in Shangyi county, which has a population of 190,000, were left homeless in temperatures that plunged to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 F), one official said.
Temporary shelters had been erected, and all the victims were under cover, he added.
In four towns along the border between Zhangbei and Shangyi counties, 80 percent of the houses were flattened, said Huangfu Qing, a seismologist coordinating rescue work from Zhangjiakou, the largest city near the quake-stricken area.
A makeshift shelter President Jiang Zemin and Premier Li Peng called Hebei authorities to make sure all efforts were being expended on rescue work, state-run television reported on the nationwide evening news broadcast.
The quake struck at 11:50 a.m. (0350 GMT), when many people were indoors getting ready for lunch. Residents in Beijing felt apartment buildings quiver. Guests at a hotel in Zhangjiakou, 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Shangyi, ran outside in fright.
"The building shook. Things shook" for several seconds, said a switchboard operator at the Zhangjiakou Guest House who only gave her surname, Zhao. She said no buildings collapsed.
In the county seat of Shangyi, "houses split, walls cracked and glass shattered," said Wang Haiyan of the local seismology office.
She and other local government officials said the county's rough terrain makes a quick assessment of casualties and damage difficult.
In the two hours following the quake, 57 aftershocks coursed through the area, the strongest with a magnitude of 4.6, or capable of moderate damage, Xinhua said.
Shangyi is north of a patchwork of fortifications running along mountain ridges that form the Great Wall. Nearby Zhangjiakou city was for centuries an important trading town linking Beijing, the imperial capital, with Mongolia.
Correspondent Rebecca MacKinnon,The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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Related sites:
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- Worldwide information on earthquakes
- Seismology Resources on the Internet
- U.S. Geological Survey - Earthqualke Information Center, Golden Colorado
- University of Washington - Seismology and Earthquake Information
- Global Earthquake Response Center
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