The toll from a potent earthquake registering 6.2 on the Richter scale that shook China's Gansu and Qinghai provinces has risen to 131 fatalities and 980 reported injuries as authorities updated on Wednesday.
Gansu, positioned between the Tibetan and Loess plateaus and sharing borders with Mongolia, recorded 113 deaths and 782 injuries, according to local authorities cited by Xinhua news agency. Qinghai, in parallel, reported at least 18 casualties, 198 injuries, with 16 individuals still unaccounted for.
The China Earthquake Networks Centre noted the quake striking at 11:59 p.m. on Monday, with a focal depth of 10 km, its epicenter located in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture.
This seismic event marks China's deadliest earthquake in recent years, prompting ongoing rescue operations in freezing temperatures, with authorities cautioning that the death toll might rise further.
President Xi Jinping has mobilized thousands of rescue personnel to the affected region, acknowledging its status as one of China's most diverse and economically challenged areas.
This calamity ranks as the country's deadliest since 2014, when a quake in the south-western Yunnan province claimed over 600 lives, according to the NNC.
Distressing visuals aired on state TV and social media displayed villages torn apart by the quake, alongside numerous collapsed structures, as temperatures plunged to -13 degrees Celsius on Tuesday.
China's geological position, where multiple tectonic plates, notably the Eurasian, Indian, and Pacific plates, converge, heightens its susceptibility to earthquakes. This vulnerability was starkly evident in the 2010 Yushu earthquake in Qinghai, adjacent to Gansu, which claimed nearly 2,700 lives.
Recalling past seismic tragedies, China faced its most devastating earthquake in recent history in 2008, striking the southwestern province of Sichuan and resulting in the loss of 87,000 lives.
(With Agency Inputs)
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