News.Com.au: China quake topples 2,700 homes

BY staff writers
August 17, 2003

AN earthquake hit China's northern region of Inner Mongolia toppling more than 2,700 homes and killing two people, officials said today.

The quake, measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale, hit at 6.58pm (2058 AEST) yesterday near the towns of Bairin Zuoqi and Ar Horqin Qi in eastern Inner Mongolia and could be felt as far away as the capital Beijing, about 500 km south.

At least 43 people were injured.

"We were having dinner at the time when the quake hit and it was fairly strong. At the start it sounded like an avalanche. Everybody ran out to the street," a police official in Bairin Zuoqi told Reuters.

"No one dared sleep at home last night and we all stayed outside. We can see people just sleeping on the streets," she said.

The official Xinhua News agency quoted a local seismological official as saying 24,483 homes were damaged and 2,602 collapsed in 98 villages in the Bairin Zouqi area, calling the earthquake the strongest in the area in 700 years.

Xinhua said another 169 homes collapsed in villages near Ar Horqin Qi.

"Lots of houses collapsed and we are still investigating the losses," a State Seismological Bureau official told Reuters.

The official put the death toll at two and the injured at 43. Xinhua said there were 42 injured, nine of them seriously.

An earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale killed 15 and injured nearly 300 people in the south-western province of Yunnan in July.

AAP

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6980796%255E1702,00.html