Earthquake in China today: A strong 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck the remote mountainous region along the border of China’s Xinjiang province and Kyrgyzstan on Wednesday morning, according to the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ). The temblor came less than 24 hours after a devastating 7.1 quake rocked the same area, killing at least three people.
Centered in the Tilek Mountains spanning the two countries, Wednesday’s aftershock emanated from a shallow depth of around 6 miles underground. Shallow quakes often cause more intense ground shaking and infrastructure damage compared to deeper ones. This latest quake was classified by the European Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) as an aftershock resulting from Tuesday’s major seismic event.
That catastrophic 7.1 earthquake leveled homes and buildings across dozens of tiny villages in the sparse border region. Chinese state media reported at least three fatalities so far, while five people suffered injuries. However, impact assessments are ongoing as emergency crews struggle to reach remote disaster areas made inaccessible by landslides and road damage.
Over 11,000 residents have been evacuated from Xinjiang’s Taxkorgan county as over 500 rescue personnel comb through flattened communities. In one village, around 60 homes collapsed in mere seconds when the quake struck, trapping sleeping families under mounds of rubble. Aftershock risk also remains critically high for locals and emergency teams working to find and extract any survivors still buried in debris.
The affected region sits atop the India-Eurasia tectonic plate collision zone, making both China and border countries like Kyrgyzstan highly prone to seismic activity. For instance, a 6.8 earthquake in Xinjiang this past December injured one person. But experts classify this week’s consecutive border-region quakes among the most dangerous in over a decade, underlining the area’s vulnerable geology.
With frigid winter weather further hampering urgent recovery efforts and the potential for more aftershocks, the true extent of lives lost and infrastructure ruined from these back-to-back earthquakes may remain unknown for some time in this inaccessible stretch of remote wilderness along Central Asia’s mountainous frontiers.
Source 5.6 Magnitude Earthquake Hits China-Kyrgyzstan Border published by NDTV
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