DEADLY EARTHQUAKE
MAJOR DISASTER
MASS CASUALTIES
SCENARIOS 444, 080, 070, 09, 08, 07
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Earthquake kills at least 398, injures 1,881 others in SW China
Death toll has risen to at least 398, with 1,881 others injured, from an earthquake that struck SW China’s Yunnan province on Sunday, August 3, reported Xinhua, the country’s official news agency.
The magnitude 6.5 earthquake, said to be the strongest to strike the province in 100 years, has destroyed or damaged more than 42,000 buildings, said the report.
The quake has destroyed or damaged about 90 percent of “wood and earth” houses, which includes most of the structures in the disaster zone, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
The deadly quake has affected at least 1.09 million people, forcing more than 230,000 people to relocate.
According to USGS/EHP, at least 4 aftershocks measuring between magnitudes 4.5Mw and 4.7Mw have struck the disaster zone, as of posting.
“As of 8 a.m. Monday, 411 aftershocks had been recorded in the quake-hit region, with four measured between 4.0 to 4.9 magnitude and five between 3.0 to 3.9 magnitude, according to the administration,” said Xinhua.
Meanwhile, China’s National Committee for Disaster Mitigation has upgraded its disaster relief response to the highest-level, said the report.
“[The National Committee for Disaster Mitigation] decided to lift the level of the disaster relief response from grade III to I at 11 a.m. Monday. Grade I is usually issued for ‘especially major natural disasters’ in which more than 200 people are killed or more than 1 million people are relocated.”
Thundershowers are forecast through Wednesday, making the relief work much more difficult in the mountainous disaster zone.
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