Earthquake in China leaves hundreds dead and thousands injured

As many as 300 people are dead and many more trapped in rubble after a magnitude 7.1 quake hit north-west China.

Chinese state television said the quake left up to 8,000 injured and was one of six to hit Yushu county, Qinghai province, this morning.

Army trucks have been sent to the remote area, 480 miles away from the provincial capital, Xining, to aid rescue and relief efforts. Witnesses reported the collapse of many brick and wood buildings, with people scrabbling through the debris to free those trapped inside. Power and water supplies have been cut although some early reports suggested larger buildings had stood firm. The population is relatively scattered, making it hard to assess damage.

The China Earthquake Administration said phone lines were down, hindering rescue efforts, while workers were racing to release water from a cracked reservoir.

In Jiegu, a township near the epicentre, more than 85% of houses collapsed, while large cracks appeared on buildings still standing, the official Xinhua News Agency cited Zhuohuaxia, a local publicity official, as saying.

"The streets in Jiegu are thronged with panic and full of injured people, with many of them bleeding from their injuries," he said. One local official was quoted by the BBC saying: "We have nothing now. The loss is huge."

Red Cross workers are preparing supplies of tents and warm clothing to send to the remote high altitude region amid fears that thousands have been left without shelter in near-freezing temperatures.

The main quake sent residents fleeing as it toppled houses made of mud and wood, said Karsum Nyima, the Yushu county television station's deputy head of news, speaking by phone with broadcaster CCTV.

"In a flash the houses went down. It was a terrible earthquake," he said. "In a small park there is a Buddhist tower and the top of the tower fell off.

"Everybody is out on the streets standing in front of their houses, trying to find their family members," he said, adding that school buildings had not collapsed but students had been evacuated and were assembled in outdoor playgrounds.

Yushu county is a largely Tibetan area of Qinghai. The province and other parts of China's north west have suffered repeated tremors in recent years.

A local government website puts the county's population in 2005 at 89,300 people, mostly herders and farmers. State television showed footage of paramilitary police using shovels to dig around a house with a collapsed wooden roof. A local military official, Shi Huajie, told state broadcaster CCTV that rescuers were working with limited equipment.

"The difficulty we face is that we don't have any excavators. Many of the people have been buried and our soldiers are trying to pull them out with human labor," Shi said. "It is very difficult to save people with our bare hands."

Wu Yong, a local military chief, said medical workers were urgently needed but roads leading to the airport had been badly damaged by the quake, creating difficulties for people and supplies to be flown in.

The epicentre of the first quake was located 235 miles south-south-east of Golmud, a large city in Qinghai, at a depth of six miles, the US Geological Survey said.

Ten minutes later the area was hit by a magnitude 5.3 quake, which was followed after two minutes by another measuring 5.2. Both the subsequent earthquakes were measured at a depth of six miles. Another quake measuring 5.8 was recorded at 9:25am.