At Least 21 Killed In Magnitude 6.8 Quake In Sichuan

A magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck China's Sichuan on Monday, Sept. 5, 2022, the strongest to hit the province since 2017, with the shaking felt in the provincial capital of Chengdu and hundreds of kilometers away in the cities of Xian and Changsha, Reuters reported.

Photo Insert: The quake was Sichuan's biggest since August 2017, when a magnitude 7.0 quake hit Aba prefecture.

There were no immediate reports of any casualties. CNN, however, reported that 21 people died.

The epicenter was at the town of Luding at a depth of 16 km (10 miles), the China Earthquake Networks Centre said, about 226 km (140 miles) southwest of Chengdu, a city of about 21 million people.

"The shaking was quite strong and it lasted for a while," said Shirley Li, who lives on the 30th floor of an apartment block in Chengdu, which is under a COVID-19 lockdown, after suffering summer heatwaves.

"It's been a hard time for us - heatwaves, the COVID lockdown, and now the earthquake."

An aftershock of a magnitude of 4.2 struck the city of Yaan, about 100 km (60 miles) southwest of Chengdu, minutes later. Earthquakes are common in the southwestern province of Sichuan, especially its mountains in the west, a tectonically active area along the eastern boundary of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau.

In Luding, the quake was so strong it was hard for some people to remain standing while cracks appeared on some houses, according to state media China News Service.

Video clips posted on social media showed lights swinging while people rushed out of buildings into the streets. A total of 39,000 people live within a 20-km (12.5 miles) radius of the epicenter and 1.55 million within a 100-km (62 miles) radius, according to state television.

The quake was Sichuan's biggest since August 2017, when a magnitude 7.0 quake hit Aba prefecture.

The most powerful Sichuan earthquake on record was in May 2008 when a magnitude 8.0 quake centered in Wenchuan killed almost 70,000 people and caused extensive damage.

Monday's quake was felt as far away as Changsha in Hunan province and Xian in Shaanxi province hundreds of kilometers away, according to social media posts.

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