China earthquake kills 12, injures 134

Beijing

THE toll from a strong 6.0 magnitude earthquake in south-west China rose to 12 dead and 134 injured on Tuesday as rescuers pulled bodies and survivors from wrecked buildings.

More than 4,000 people were relocated as a large number of structures were damaged or collapsed after the quake struck late on Monday near Yibin in Sichuan province, according to the city government.

State broadcaster CCTV showed footage of rescuers bringing a survivor out of the rubble of a building on a stretcher overnight. Other images showed a woman being helped out of another collapsed structure.

Images from Changning county showed an electricity pole that was knocked down on the roof of a building, a hole in a brick home and broken windows on the street.

Cracks appeared in several roads, and a major highway connecting Yibin and Xuyong county was closed, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Mud and rock slipped from the side of a hill, blocking a road and wrapping around a truck, according to CCTV footage.

More than 10,000 rooms within an undisclosed number of buildings were moderately damaged while 12 collapsed, according to Yibin authorities. The homes of more than 4,000 families were damaged in Gong county.

The possibility of thunder and showers over the next two days could complicate the rescue efforts, according to Xinhua.

An early warning alarm system was triggered in the provincial capital Chengdu about one minute before the earthquake struck, Xinhua said. The alert rang 10 seconds before it hit Yibin.

A three-second headstart before an tremor hits can prevent 14 per cent of casualties, Xinhua said.

Nine people died in Changning county and three others in Qixian county, the Yibin city government said in its Twitter-like Weibo account, up from an initial death toll of six overnight.

Rescuers pulled six bodies and seven survivors from buildings, it said. Xinhua said that more than 50 people were being treated in two hospitals.

More than 500 firefighters have been dispatched to the scene. Rescue personnel were also sent with 5,000 tents, 10,000 folding cots and other emergency supplies, Xinhua reported.

The area was hit by a series of at least four aftershocks, the largest of which had a magnitude of 5.1.

The US Geological Survey put the magnitude of the main quake at 5.8.

Earthquakes regularly strike Sichuan, where a powerful 7.9 magnitude quake left 87,000 people dead or missing in 2008.

In February, three earthquakes hit Rongxian county in the province, killing two people and injuring 12 others - casualties that residents blamed on fracking.

Local authorities later halted shale gas mining after thousands of residents protested. AFP