A shallow magnitude 5.4 earthquake struck eastern China in the early hours yesterday, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said, with state media reporting at least 10 people injured and dozens of buildings collapsed.
Video footage on social media showed shaking light fixtures, trembling ground and people evacuating their buildings, with one clip showing people walking past bricks scattered on the ground.
The quake, which struck at 2:33am, hit 26km south of the city of Dezhou in Shandong Province, at a depth of 10km, USGS said.
Photo: AP
“The tremor was so strong ... during the earthquake my head was shaking on the pillow, I thought I was having a nightmare,” one person wrote in Sina Weibo from Shandong’s neighbouring Hebei Province.
USGS’ Prompt Assessment of Global Earthquakes for Response system, which provides preliminary assessments on the effect of earthquakes, issued a red alert — estimating extensive damage and some casualties were probable based on previous quake data.
Citing Shandong authorities, state broadcaster China Central Television said there were at least “10 injured” and 74 houses or buildings had “collapsed” from the earthquake, which was followed by 52 aftershocks.
The Chinese Ministry of Emergency Management launched a level four emergency response and dispatched a team to Shandong to lead the rescue work, Xinhua news agency said.
The quake was felt as far away as the cities of Beijing and Tianjin, as well as in Shanghai, about 800km from the epicentre
Earthquakes are not uncommon in China but it is rare for them to hit the eastern part of the country where most of the population and big cities are located.
An official from the Shandong Seismological Bureau said the possibility of a larger earthquake is “very small,” local media repoted.
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