China army rushes aid to homeless quake survivors

January 11, 1998
Web posted at: 5:09 p.m. EST (2209 GMT)

BEIJING (CNN) -- Chinese soldiers rushed to provide tents and blankets Sunday to more than 20,000 peasants left homeless by an earthquake.

The magnitude 6.2 earthquake devastated the county of Zhangbei and neighboring Shangyi county in agricultural Hebei province, killing 47 people.

The number killed remained steady throughout Saturday night and early Sunday, even as estimates of the number injured rose from 2,000 to over 11,000, the official news agency Xinhua said. Over 1,200 of those were reported to be seriously injured.

The quake struck just before noon, when many people were indoors getting ready for lunch and shook high-rise apartment blocks in Beijing some 140 miles southeast of the epicenter. It could be felt as far east as the port of Tianjin.

Trucks carrying soldiers and supplies streamed into devastated Zhangbei county in China's far north, where poor farmers spent the night on makeshift straw beds after Saturday's earthquake flattened their mud and brick homes, officials said.

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 the city of Zhangjiakou.

A makeshift shelter

President Jiang Zemin and Premier Li Peng called Hebei province authorities to make sure all efforts were being expended on rescue work, state-run TV reported.

The Chinese army set up roadblocks about 25 miles from the earthquake zone, allowing local traffic through but blocking foreigners' access and threatening to confiscate Western reporters' film and videos.

At least 1,200 soldiers of the People's Liberation Army had been sent to the area with medicine and relief supplies overnight, the official People' Daily newspaper said.

The focus of rescue operations shifted to protecting the tens of thousands of homeless peasants from temperatures which plunged to minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit.

Many villagers spent the wintry night in makeshift mangers or huddled around fires, and doctors were bracing for outbreaks of colds and flu, a local official said.

One wheat farmer in Xishungou village, 18 miles south of the epicenter, told Reuters he and his wife and son spent the night in a haystack in fear that aftershocks would bring their cracked mud house down on them.

"It was so cold that we could not fall asleep all night and at dawn we had to run around the village to stay warm," said Chen Yi, standing in front of his cracked dwelling.

Ninety percent of homes in Zhangbei had been made unsafe by cracks and about 800 houses in Shangyi had toppled or been damaged, Xinhua quoted officials of the State Seismological Bureau as saying.

Local schools left standing after the tremor and more than 100 aftershocks were being converted into shelters and local vendors were providing instant noodles for the victims, a local official said.

About 10,000 people in Shangyi county, which has a population of 190,000, were made homeless. Zhangbei has a population of 360,000.

The quake struck just before the Lunar New Year, which falls this year on January 28, adding to the misery of victims during the most important festival of the calendar when homes are being readied for family gatherings.

More than 100 aftershocks jolted the area of Hebei, where China's worst earthquake in modern history flattened the city of Tangshan in 1976, killing at least 240,000 people.

Related stories:

• Dozens die in earthquake near Beijing - January 10, 1998
• Earthquake rattles northeastern Peru - October 28, 1997
• Minor quake jolts Alabama, Florida - October 24, 1997
• Powerful quake in Chile kills 8 - October 15, 1997
• 1 killed, 4 hurt in Italy quake - October 3, 1997

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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