(MENAFN- AzerNews) Hundreds of temporary one-room housing units were set up
Thursday in northwest China for survivors of an earthquake that
destroyed more than 14,000 homes and killed at least 144 people, Azernews reports.
The death toll rose by nine as search teams dug through heavy
mudslides that had inundated two villages, a city official in
Qinghai province said Friday morning. Three people remained missing
in the mudslides.
State broadcaster CCTV showed footage of cranes lifting white,
box-like housing units and lining them up in an open field in
Meipo, a village in Gansu province. About 260 had been erected, and
the total in the village was expected to reach 500 across nine
sites by Friday morning.
The death toll included 113 people in Gansu and another 31
people in neighboring Qinghai. Nearly 1,000 were reported injured.
The magnitude 6.2 quake struck in a mountainous region on the Gansu
side of the boundary between the two provinces and about 1,300
kilometers (800 miles) southwest of Beijing, the Chinese
capital.
Funerals have been held for the dead, some following the Muslim
traditions of much of the population in the affected area.
The mud rose as high as 3 meters (10 feet) in the two villages in
Qinghai province, leaving only the rooftops of some buildings
showing. Search teams used excavators to dig through the thick sea
of mud that covered roads, encased buildings and blocked entry
points.
Experts quoted by CGTN, the Chinese state broadcaster's
international arm, said the earthquake liquefied underground
sediment in the area, where the water table is relatively high. At
some point, the muddy sediment burst through the surface and flowed
down a usually dry ditch into the villages.
Most of China's earthquakes strike in the western part of the
country, including Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, as
well as the Xinjiang region and Tibet. The latest quake was the
deadliest one in the country in nine years.
The arrival of the prefabricated units was a sign that many of
the more than 87,000 people resettled after the Monday night
earthquake may be homeless for some time. Many have been enduring
temperatures well below freezing in flimsier tent-like units with
blue plastic sheeting on the outside and a quilted cotton lining
inside.
An assessment of the 90% of the houses in a village weren't safe
to live in, experts told CCTV in an online report. Some of the
homes in Yangwa village appear OK, but they have structural damage
that make them unsafe, the experts said. For those that can be
repaired, the work may have to wait until next year, because the
soil is frozen.
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