Rescuers rushed tents, food and water to villagers in Tibet yesterday after an earthquake and scores of aftershocks rattled the capital and surrounding areas, killing at least 10 people and collapsing hundreds of houses.
State media said soldiers and rescue dogs were searching through rubble for people in Yangyi, the hardest-hit village in Dangxiong County, where the magnitude 6.6 quake struck late on Monday afternoon.
Xinhua news agency said nine people were killed in Yangyi. The 10th death was a high school student killed in a stampede in Shannan Prefecture, about 200km southwest of Dangxiong, during a quake evacuation, Xinhua said.
PHOTO: AP/XINHUA
Nineteen people were injured in Yangyi, many with bone fractures, Xinhua said, mostly women, children and the elderly because the men were away harvesting and foraging for winter.
About 171 homes were destroyed. Photos on the central government’s Web site show piles of concrete — all that remained of collapsed houses — and the exposed roots of trees ripped from the ground.
“Almost all the buildings have collapsed in Yangyi,” said Yi Xi, an employee of the Geda Township government, which oversees the village. “I went there earlier and did not see a single one still standing.”
“Our efforts are focused on providing them food and shelter,” she said in a telephone interview.
Tenzin Chodrak, who escaped because he was putting extra hay into the sheepfold when the quake struck and his home collapsed, told Xinhua his nephew was killed and his mother was injured.
“I can’t believe it,” Nyima, a Tibetan herder who lost her two-year-old daughter, was quoted as saying by Xinhua as she wept.
The agency said at least 700 rescuers were working yesterday, with soldiers putting up more tents hoping to accommodate all the villagers by dusk. Health workers were doing checkups and sanitizing the area to prevent epidemics, it said.
Dangxiong County is about 80km west of Lhasa.
Many families stayed in tents on Monday night because they were afraid their homes would fall down. The regional seismological bureau registered 188 aftershocks by 7am yesterday), Xinhua said, including one above magnitude 6.0.
None of Lhasa’s landmarks, such as the Potala Palace and Jokhang Temple, appeared to be damaged.
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
At first, Francis Ari Sture thought a human was trying to shove him down the steep Norwegian mountainside. Then he saw the golden eagle land. “We are staring at each other for, maybe, a whole minute,” Sture said on Monday. “I’m trying to think what’s in its mind.” The bird then attacked Sture five more times on Thursday last week, scratching and clawing the 31-year-old bicycle courier’s face and arms over 10 to 15 minutes as he sprinted down the mountain. The same eagle is believed to be responsible for attacks on three other people across a vast mountainous area of southern Norway
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for