7.0 Earthquake Devastates China's Xinjiang Region

Photo byUSGS

Early in the morning Tuesday, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1 occurred in a remote area of western China's Xinjiang region. It brought down power lines, destroyed at least 78 homes and forced officials to halt train service, according to state media.

According to the China Earthquake Networks Center, which was cited by Xinhua News Agency, the earthquake struck Aksu prefecture's Uchturpan county (also known as Wushi county in Mandarin) just after two in the morning local time.

On its official Weibo social media account, the government of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region shared news that 47 buildings had collapsed, 78 houses sustained damage, and other agricultural structures had collapsed also.

Photo byWang Xudong/Xinhua via AP

The earthquake, which had a magnitude of 7.0, happened in the seismically active Tian Shan mountain range, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The China Meteorological Administration has predicted lows of as low as negative 18 degrees Celsius (slightly below zero Fahrenheit) this week, with Uchturpan County, the epicenter of the earthquake, recording temperatures well below zero. This winter, severe cold snaps have caused significant discomfort in several parts of northern and central China, forcing officials to repeatedly close schools and roads due to snowstorms.

Hundreds of kilometers away, people felt the earthquakes.

In 2008, an earthquake in Sichuan claimed about 90,000 lives. After schools and other structures collapsed, years of work went into rebuilding with stronger earthquake-resistant materials.

Sources:

https://weather.com/news/weather/news/2024-01-22-earthquake-strikes-china-kazakhstan

https://apnews.com/article/china-quake-xinjiang-kyrgyzstan-kazakhstan-48338716e604279d088a807f9770878e

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000lsze